MBCNSW June 2024 night drive – Clovelly to Kurnell

The June MBCNSW night drive brought back a route that we last used in October 2021.    It was held one week later than normal since I was overseas last week.   That was probably good from a weather point of view, as it apparently poured all week.   Last night was somewhat better, with only scattered showers.

The more inner city night drives can be a bit tricky as it is hard to keep the group together.    Last time we had cars all over the Sutherland shire – this time we did better with the group mostly together.

We started at Clovelly and drove around to Kurnell, where we stopped to regroup and have a look at the view over Botany Bay.   Kurnell used to be the site of an oil refinery. However, the refinery was closed and now it only acts as a terminal to import already refined petroleum products. That Australia lacks local oil refining capacity seems to be a major policy blunder from our Governments.

Most of us then headed back to McDonalds at Taren point.   This McDonalds advertises being open 24 hours, but it is highly misleading.    Only the drive through is open, and what sort of savage eats in the car?    Won’t be using that McDonalds again.  McDonalds probably lost $100 from our group, but our bodies probably thanked us for it.

On the drive, we had four 124s (two 300Es, a 300TE and an E320 Cabriolet), my 123 240D, a 126 380SEC and a modern CLS500.   The owner of the CLS just purchased the car as a replacement for his W211 E500 that was sadly written off.  Looking at the interior, I would say the CLS is a step up in comfort and quality.    The white 300E was just back from a head gasket job and was running really well.

I had actually considered bringing my 124 on the drive, which would have made it five.   Since I planned to drive the 124 to Canberra the next day, I took the 240D.   I am continually impressed with how good the 240D is to drive.   It really isn’t slow around town and is nimble and easy to drive.   Could use new wiper blades though.

After being away for most of June, it was good to get back out for a night drive and in the old cars.  Certainly the W123 is a far better car to drive than the Chevy Malibu rental I had.