Valla-- My story

well,,, as it happens, when i was a tad younger (in my twentys) my good mate Ken & i would head off in my old blue 63 splitty single cab ute on Surfing Surfaris all down the east-coast of Oz,,, many many trips, surfing every little out-of-the-way & "secret" surf spots as we could find & get to,,, dam those were the days hey? :-)

this one time (at band camp) on the way home from one of these trips, (can`t remember which trip) :-) we came across a line-up of Vee-dubs, convoying into Nambucca,,, so we joined the Que, wandered our way into town with all the dubs,,, had a gork & a torque with the few who were googling & drooling at my Ute, then took off out-a-there,,, & that was it,,, we left it at that & surfed our way home once again

Now 25-odd years later, here we are, "Part" of the official Valla scene

&,,, funny as it may seem, to be such a life long die hard Mini specialist,,, to be involved with such a motly V-dub crew , at that same V-dub spectacular 25 odd years later... pretty dam cool i reckon :-)

how life turns full circle no matter what you`re into hey?

anyways,,, apart from our disastrous start with gearbox dramas (Thanks heaps Dangerous Dave, box is working wonderfully thank you again) we (Marlene & i) made our way down the coast to Valla Thursday arvo,,, left Bne at 1-oclock lunchtime & got into Valla at half past 4-ish

no dramas, all smooth sailing,,, & just nice to be back in my kombi after a month without the old thing (we call it "Stumpy" btw)

so we drive around checking everything out, booking into our cabin at Nambucca, had a surf & a swim in the heated pool, grabbed some fish & chips in the main street for dinner & chilled out back at the park

woke Friday all revved up to see some racing at Raleigh , wish i had taken my buggy now :-(

all good fun, hooked up with my good mate Matt Berry & Dangerous Dave, Aaron etc, had a damn good time ... i`ll definately try to organise racing either my buggy or the Kombi next meeting there in 2 years time... if they let me :-)

Friday night was just nice, had a good meal in town, won a pile of money on the pokies at the pub, then chilled out back at the cabin

Saturday & the big convoy was great , met up with Matty-B & trundled along with the kombi-voy into Nambucca & wow what a sight??? awsome having sooo many V-dubs crammed in together,,, well done to the Pell familly, all the helpers & organisers,,, that part of the whole trip made it all worth while , so big thank you to everyone involved

Sat arvo & had a stroll around the swap meet,,, didn`t buy anything but liked the look of that 2-Litre Kombi box that Gordon had with all Albins internals,,, $4000 could have been money well spent as a spare box for "Stumpy",,, but sadly not enough money in my pockets :-(

We then took a trip down to Cresent head (Yet another favorite surfing spot of mine (but wow how things change over the years) Nothing stays the same does it??? But the good long wave rides there havn`y changed at least.

Sat night came around & dinner is great, caught up with some pld mates, Wally & Matty & Richie & some of the Alder familly etc etc etc,,, Had a few drinkahols :-) food was good, Band was great, loved the themed party thing , that was terrific & should become std issue at these meetings i reckon

We didn`t get too involved but maybe next time :-)

Sunday was cool,,, apart from a bit of a mix up with the breaky,,, $18 for 2 panckaes & one bacon & egg burger was just wrong,,, but still,,, i classified it as donations to the cause & for the greater good of the local community,,, but, i`ll be bringing my own pancakes, bacon & eggs & coffee next time if that part isn`t sorted out for the next meeting.

We hung around only for a short time , cruised through the show & shine & swap-meet area-(s),,, Maybe ,,, & only a suggestion, but maybe next time have all the cars in the one park area,,, splitting them up in different areas isn`t a good thing at all,,, we`ve been to soooooo many car shows in my time & all the "Good" ones have "ALL" the cars in the one park,,, just a suggestion to any of the organisers who care to read this,,, i know it can sometimes be a pain to organize,,, but it`s definately well worth the effort to "Try" to have all the cars & the swap meet , trade stalls , all in the one spot

There was (what looked like) Plenty of room in the kombi paddock for everything

Anyways,,, we headed off, dropped into Byron for a quick sweet little surf,,, couldn`t get Marlene out of the water till after the sun had gone down :-) wave hog :-) then we trundled back home, all happy that everything was just great... my g-box didnt complain one bit,,, we didn`t spend too much money,,, we both had a great time,,, lots & lots & lots of kombis was good to see,,, met heaps of old friends & even made a few new ones

no real complaints (apart from the $18 breakfast dilemma/fiasco)

Major credit to the Pell familly & all the helpers & organisers & to the Valla beach Tourist Park etc etc etc

i`d love to organise a mini meeting there in a couple of years, maybe try to sort it for the weekend foloowing the Vw-spectacular & maybe that would entice even more people to "Both" meetings,,, seems the local community love the hot-rods, GT club & the vee-dubs all filtering money into their community & obviously it`s a quality location so i`ll see what happens in the next year or so,,, "Maybe" we`ll have a mini show there too

Thanks again to everyone involved,,, it was just terrific
cheers
Matt Read
The MiniMan

Well Mat sounds like you had a great time, my story is a little shorter.
Arrived at the Shell servo at Heatherbrae at 9.45am ready to tag along with the combies, filled up with petrol and went to pull away from the pump, no clutch, the cable had broken at the pedel end (my you beut stainless cable had chucked it in after only 18 months ) luckily I managed to start it in gear, 3rd, and got it up to our office/workshop about 2 k's up the road, tried repairing it for an hour or so, not successfull so toddled off to the boating place down the road and got a new cable made up, had to improvise down at the box end but eventualy got going about 2.45pm (buggy aroused a bit of interest up on the forklift with me working and cursing under it). So off I go heading north, little wench flying along better than ever before, 110 and I'm cheering. Pulled in for a comfort stop somewhere after Bulahdelah (old blokes bladder ya know) noticed that the bottom just touched going across the road edge drain, off I go again and within 1 k I notice it's just not performing as well, pull over at an energency phone to check, no sump plug (guess thats what I heard hit back up the road, Bloke in a white hatch back pulled over to see if I needed any help (thanks Steve I owe you big time) Steve drove back to the rest stop and found the sump plug (I woulda bet my leftie that it would never be found again) ended up NRMA taking it to the 24 hour at Nabiac, toped up the oil, got it going but when I heard the loud knock decided that was my weekend stuffed so contacted numers 1 and2 sons and they came to my rescue with a trailer, back home about 1.30am Saturday.
Now all I can do is look at the picks posted and feel shitie.

The pleasures of driving Volkswagens comes with dramas, and wow, you sure had your share. I know that this little bit of advice I am about to pass is a bit late in your circumstances but for $10, you can buy a little 12V buzzer from a VDO shop or maybe any automotive accessory shop, mount under your dash, one wire to earth and the other to your oil warning light. When you turn on your ignition, the buzzer will sound but once your motor fires up the buzzing stops, if like in your case, you dropped your sump plug whilst driving, the buzzer will scare shit out of ya before any bearing damage occurs, this is old news to many but I thought its worth posting cheers Frank

It's new news to me VolksVair, though I have been thinking along those lines as I had a simmilar thing in my outboard boat, it would have to be loud though as the little wench is kinda noisy. 🤓 👍
Thanks

We had a great VW weekend away,😎 And both of our little vw didnt miss a beat on the 900Ks trip😊
But before we left Valla on Monday morning our neighbor in our complex called to tell us that some one had broken into our work shop😬, Luckily they only took the cash tin with about $80 😠worth of coins in it and lucky they did take any tools of do any damage to the shop or cars in workshop.

Good idea to fit an extra buzzer and hook it up to your generator light, so if you throw or break a fan belt, your not going to cook your motor, but if your a vigilant Vdubster, you would have one eye on your oil warning light, one eye on your genny light, one eye on your speedo and maybe a fourth on the road, Maybe thats why normal people look at us funny?? Only down side to these buzzers are that they can drive you crazy if your engine takes tooooooo long to start🤪 cheers Frank