MBCNSW late December 2021 night drive through Picton

Last night was the final night drive (and last official drive overall) for the Mercedes Club in 2021.    Since the lockdown was lifted, we’ve really struggled with the weather for these night drives.  Finally, the weather held up and we had a great turn out of 17 cars on the night.   It started out hot and humid but cooled off and proved to be a great night for the open topped cars.   I had originally planned to bring my 250SE, but hadn’t had a chance to get the club registration signed off in time.    Given the route we took, I’m glad I took the 560SEC as I’m not quite sure the 250SE could have kept up with the pace set by the AMG cars.

The route had us start in Camden, drive down near Thirlmere and then take Picton road to join the M1 near Wollongong before heading up to meet at Heathcote McDonalds.   We end a lot of the night drives at McDonalds as they are open 24 hours, have clean toilets and allow people to buy a drink or snack.    Even better, one of the people on the route was a local who helped us vary the route a bit around Camden on some better driving roads.    We also took a short detour to Bald head lookout before the final meeting point.

Some people peeled off before the Picton road section and headed back to Sydney via the M31.   This worked quite well as it allowed them to come for a shorter drive and the main group to do the full route.

As usual, we had a good variety of cars.  This included four 107s, three 124s, two 126s, a 108 for the classics.  For the moderns, we had an S class V12 as well as some other AMG cars including two C63s, a CLS and a CLA45S.

It was a really great drive to end the year on, and most people seemed to enjoy it.   I’m looking forward to the 2022 night drives.  There are still a bunch of drives we planned for 2021 but could not do because of lockdown.