By Steve Lennox

Gold Coast Hinterland Run to Polly’s Kitchen – Sunday 20th March 2016

This is one of the nicer and more scenic social runs we have, as such we have a good attendance of wives and partners. We started at BP Yatala at 10:00am, to avoid all the city driving. The Lotuses started to arrive with about a dozen cars all up. These varied from the Elise’s, to two modern Europa’s, an Elan and an Esprit, as well as Mal Kelson in a Toyota 86.

We were feeling good with the attention the Lotuses were attracting until another group of car enthusiasts turned up to start their run at the same BP. These guys had some of the nicest machinery money could buy, with McLaren, Lamborghini, Ferrari, Porsche and even a Bentley in the group. We all looked over at their vehicles with interest as they pulled out for their morning drive.

We departed for a drive through the back roads with beautiful scenery to our morning tea stop at Canungra. Along the way, we encountered a motorcycle club run going the other way. There must have been at least 200 motorcycles in what seemed like an endless parade of noisy (mostly Harley) bikes roaring past. Morning tea at Canungra was enjoyable, although I have been told that the protein balls were more like birdseed balls. Luckily, Mary-Anne and I went the classic Devonshire morning tea, with very nice country scones and homemade jam.

After the usual Lotus chit-chat, we departed for our lunch destination. This part of the drive was through the sub-tropical rainforest of the hinterland, skirting Springbrook National Park. The wet summer has really made the rainforest flourish and it was a very picturesque drive to Polly’s Kitchen. Lunch as always was enjoyable, with a great outlook from the verandah out to the rainforest. We had to keep an eye on our food as a very tame Kookaburra was just waiting for his opportunity to swoop in and grab anything unattended.

This is a great run with a social theme, I urge any Queensland club members who enjoy the social side of the club to attend next year.