The weather Gods in Auckland have pre-ordained that light annoying rain must fall as soon as a Mercedes Club member leaves home on the way to a Sunday rally. The preceding day has been spent washing and polishing the finest Benz ever to leave Stuttgart and it’s lovingly put to bed on Saturday night in a nice warm garage. The electric door rolls up on Sunday morning and heavily overcast skies are revealed with the added benefit of a cold South-westerly wind. We are supposed to be enjoying Spring weather; but not today. Waterproof garments and umbrellas are hastily packed into the trunk and this upsets the carefully planned time of departure. As we roll down the deserted road the first spots of rain are appearing on the glass and by the time two km have elapsed the pristine vehicle is running rivulets of water in all directions.
At Drury we swing on to the desolate Southern Motorway bound for The Northern Manukau Coast Scavenger Hunt. The Manukau Interchange comes up; we change motorways heading towards Onehunga looking for the Taumanu Reserve. The roads get narrower and narrower, we crawl past a tiny café serving coffee which can be enjoyed by sitting on rusty metal chairs under a dripping veranda, no time for this luxury and the car plunges down a steep slope to the troubled shores of the Manukau Harbour.
The Reserve is tiny and populated with Club members receiving instructions from the organisers: Chris and Pree. There are six pages of information and The judge’s decision is final! This would indicate that the judge’s decisions on previous events may have been challenged.
Usually at this point the arriving members like to stand around and chat a bit, but the weather is foul and Chris suggests that we get started immediately with the eventual target of meeting at the Bodega Eatery at 1 pm.
The road to Bodega is long and varied and mostly over little known roads around the Northern shores of the Manukau Harbour. The general impression is that once you leave your regular Auckland address the rest of the city can be completely unknown or very infrequently visited. Five checkpoints had to be found and photographed to prove that you had, actually, been there. 12 scavenged items had to be collected and an ethnic query needed to be solved.
The eventual destination was 95 Parrs Cross Road, Henderson, home of the Bodega Eatery. Bodega suggests Spain, but in the current weather conditions the unlikely dirt track with barbed wire fences did not remind one of Sunny Spain. Never fear, the car park was packed (always a good sign) and we had to go to the secondary carpark which was populated with travellers, flocks of wild poultry, dogs and cats. The welcome at The Eatery was warm and the smiling multinational staff took our orders at the door and had us seated in no time. A generous three course meal was served and several members (rightly) considered that they might have earned a glass of Spanish wine to accompany their meal. Chris produced the names of the winning hunters and Sue and Arthur were the gold medallists, a very fine effort. John and Didje were close on their tails for the silver medal. Ken and Philippa got special mention, for missing a left turn so they had a longer run to the Coast. Lindsay won the “plane interesting” award for his poetic Ode to the Lonely Onion.
The assembled company seated at the Bodega seemed to be at variance with the list of starters back at Taumanu Reserve. Where was one of our newer members? Turned out that Deidree had loaded her SLK230 on to a tow truck and eloped with the driver never to be seen again! (The rumour was that the gear box had packed up). And then some very senior members mysteriously appeared, ate an excellent lunch and claimed that Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert had caused early morning departure delays. The truth is always the first casualty in war and Scavenger Runs.
When the members had refreshed their appetites, it was time to congratulate the chefs and waitstaff on a very fine effort and the organisers of the event were applauded.
David Winn
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