Lockyer Valley Day Run
By Steve Lennox.
For a few years now I’ve been driving around the Lockyer Valley and have come across some great roads. I’ve always thought “gee it would be great to drive the Lotus on these roads” so I finally put all the roads together for this run.
The idea initially was to do this as a pantry run, where we would stop at Farm gate stalls and other local produce suppliers, however this doesn’t really exist anymore, and the local produce mainly available through weekend farmers markets.
So instead, we did the run with a couple of key attractions. Morning tea at the German Bake and Wurst House and lunch at the Grand Homestead at Woodlands of Marburg, plus a stop off at a boutique distillery.
We started at the respectable time of 9:00 at Marburg, outside the coffee shop that wouldn’t open. This is the second run I have organised that didn’t have coffee at the start, I must be jinxed as the coffee shop was open a few weeks earlier when we did the recce.
We had a really good turn out with 20 cars and 34 people, which is wonderful, but did result in having to have alternate venues for the morning tea and lunch as we were limited to a maximum of 28 for the original venues.
There were varying results on the run, with some navigating quite well to the venues and others taking an even more scenic route.
The cakes and pastries were typically German and delicious at morning tea, and some even had a wurst brunch. The lunch was at the very impressive old seminary at Marburg set in absolutely spectacular grounds.
After lunch a few of us drove a short distance up Seminary Road to Imbibis Boutique distillery, where Jason informed us of all things distilling. He certainly knows his craft and we had tastings of some very nice gins and an international award-winning brandy. Some of us stocked up and then headed home.
A great day driving through the Valley and as Tracy Martin said “Thanks for organising a great run Steve, perfect weather, windy roads, easy navigation and gin tasting to finish. All the things I like!”
