MBCNSW May 2024 Night Drive – Northern Beaches Loop

Last night was the MBCNSW May night drive.   This drive was a little different to what we normally do.   Instead of a longer drive on semi-rural twisty roads, this one was shorter and far closer to the city.

The genesis of this drive came from remembering how peaceful it was up at North Head in the evening.   The views back to the city and across the harbour are amazing.   I thought it would be a good place to go to take some photos of all the older cars lined up against the view.     The original idea was to start at Shelly Beach, drive up to North Head for the view, then across to Dobroyd Head for a second perspective, before taking Wakehurst Parkway into Brookvale.

The issue came the month before, when I went up to North head myself.  Instead of being able to drive up there as usual, at some point the government had installed a locked gate.   I had seen some tyre marks up there before, so I assume that there were people going up there to do burnouts from time to time.

The gate closed at 6pm, way too early for the night drive.   The gate is such a knee jerk reaction to a problem.   It doesn’t stop the idiots doing the burnouts, it just moves them somewhere else.   What it does do is penalize the people who were enjoying the park when it was quiet and peaceful.   During the day there is a busy cafe up there.    The better response would have been some police patrols to actually penalize the people doing the wrong thing.   But the police are far too busy writing tickets to drivers doing 55km/h in a 50 zone.

The idiotic gate presented a problem.  While taking a set of bolt cutters was a preferable solution, that was hardly ideal for a car club run.   Therefore I had to change the route.   I did a few drives around the area, but there was nowhere else that had great views and room for 10 or so cars.

In the end I changed the starting point to McKillop reserve near Harbord Diggers, and took a different route to Dobroyd Head.   Dobroyd Head became the main stopping point, and then the rest of the route via Wakehurst Parkway to Brookvale McDonalds was all the same.

On the night it was a lovely autumn evening.   I took my 250SE and opened the roof for the drive.   We had a good turn out for the drive, with two W108s, three W124s, a W126 and an XJ6.  It was a perfect night for a drive and we all enjoyed the view from Dobroyd Head and the drive back to Brookvale.  Even having to give up North Head, it was still a good drive.