MBCNSW July 2022 Night Drive – Royal National Park

Earlier this morning I returned from the MBCNSW July 2022 Night Drive.    We try to rotate the travel direction around Sydney, so this time we were going South.    The drive was actually a repeat of one we did back in February 2021.    That drive was quite popular, so we figured we would run it again.

The drives in the dead of winter are less popular, so we had a smaller crowd than last time.   One advantage of that is that it’s easier to keep the group together.    We had my W111 250SE Cabriolet, two W124’s (A 230E and a 300E) and a Porsche 911.   The owner of the Porsche is a club member who also has a W123, W140 and W113 amongst other cars.

As with last time, the starting point was Loftus oval parking.   I don’t think I would use this as the starting point again.   There are some Petrol stations further along that are far better lit and easier to find.   We’re also less likely to interrupt a drug deal, as we likely did last night.

The route we took was the same as last time, in that we entered the Royal National Park at waterfall, and continued down until we past Bald Hill lookout.   From there we took the winding road up towards the Princes highway, which we continued along until Bulli Pass.   Our plan was to take Bulli pass down to the finish, but it was closed for roadworks, so we had to take the main highway.   Neither Google maps nor Waze had the closure, which is unusual.

For most of the drive, we hardly saw a car on the road which was nice, so we could just cruise along.    I drove with the roof down on the 250SE, which was pleasant on the way down (with gloves, a hat and the heater on full), but got a little bit chilly on the motorway drive home.     I’ve been having some running issues of late with the 250SE, and while I had a little of that on the way to the meeting point, it ran beautifully on the actual drive, and the way back home.

Given the location of the drive, it was a late night getting home, but worth it.   Cruising around at night with the roof down and little traffic on the road is always a good opportunity.