Ride to Balaklava, 7th April 2024

17 Apr

Thirty motorcycles and two cars gathered at the Ampol Service Station, at Bolivar, for a combined Sunday ride and special outing to visit a club member’s collection of classic motorbikes and to enjoy a lunch at the Royal Hotel, Balaclava. Ten past nine, we set out with Bob Finnie, with Evangeline as pillion, leading us up the Princess Highway, to Two Wells, Mallala and Owen, where we stopped for a rest and to admire the Silo Art.

After our break we set out for Balaclava, arriving at Les’s place about 10.45am. The collection consists of Kawasaki Z900’s and Yamaha SX650’s which were imported from The States and magnificently restored by Les, absolute concourse standard, also a Suzuki trail bike and a RE 650 twin.

We arrived at the Royal Hotel about 11.40 ordered drinks and our meals. As expected it took a while to get out orders, but the Hotel did very well coping with such a large group. The meals were excellent and the Club subsidised each member with a $10 voucher making it cheap meal! As always there were lots of interesting conversations during our meal, it was a very enjoyable social gathering.

The ride split up after lunch with some returning to Two Well’s and others turning off to Gawler. Heart felt thanks to Bob Finnie, who organised the ride, it was a great success!


Allan Vaisham.
Honda CB450