Day 7: Tuesday 9th May - Warwick and Stanthorpe
Today we had an early start leaving the Motel at 8am. sharp! It was grey and had been raining through the night. Our first
stop was Morgan Park Raceway where we had been granted access to the race track. The
first comment from the local guy helping us get organised was that he wasn’t
quite prepared for the large turning circles of these cars, second, they had
expected to get three cars in each bay but had to re-think for two cars.
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| "Scrutineering" bay. |
We headed off for four full laps of the racetrack. Although
it was a procession type event with strictly no passing allowed and the stewards were watching!! We headed out between two safety cars. It still gave us the
opportunity to sample the various bends and drive to the racing line.
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| Out on the track |
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| Unfortunately the 12/50 isn't allowed to overtake the Copper "Alvis" |
The track was still quite wet which added another dimension to the drive with a couple of
challenging off-camber bends even at our reasonable speeds. At the end of the
event, our “scrutineer” said we were now racing drivers. He was quite shocked
that I had been on Phillip Island Raceway at a speed approaching 100 mph in the eagle.
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| Aston Martin is catching us fast |
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| More Aston in our mirrors |
From here we had a longer drive to the privately owned “Law
Dogs Australia” training facility. After morning tea they entertained us with
an explanation of their training methods and also demonstrations of the various
dogs skills. They train dogs for security, detection (truffles and contraband
etc) and search and rescue for the private sector. They showed us various dogs from a puppy (Whitney) just
starting out on her training through to a fully trained security dog. They are also involved in the rescue and retraining
problem dogs which includes sometimes badly abused/mistreated dogs.
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| Not far off completing his training this dog knows his stuff.His first duty is to protect the handler. |
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| 10 month old Law dog pup - "Whitney" |
One recent addition responded
very well to being treated properly and turned out to be a very capable
detection dog, being food motivated it started out finding truffles but was now
able to also find explosives and soon will graduate to contraband. This particular dog, although
mistreated when young, was now going to live a life of luxury as they where
keeping it to find truffles on their property.
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| Maritta hiding contraband |
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| It didn't take very long for it to be found - less than 6 seconds! |
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| Part of line up at Law Dogs car park |
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| More of line up |
Leaving Lawdogs Australia we headed off to Ballandean Winery for a wine tasting and
then lunch.
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| At Ballandean Winery - Speed 25 and Firefly |
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| The rest of the group arrives at Ballandean Winery |
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| Parking next to a "local veteran" - early 1900's tractor at Ballandean Winery |
After lunch it was off to Dave Woods restoration business to
look over some of his current work. This included Silver Ghost’s, Bentley, Sunbeam and
an enormous Veteran Crane Simplex. The men drooled and the women chatted. It was particularly clean and tidy. The day remained grey and gloomy but it made for a stunning sunset.
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| Heading back to Warwick - the sun is beginning to set. |
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