Seventeen monkeys, six Daimlers

The DLCV holds an annual winter weekend run for V8s, known as the Brass Monkey. We joined our fellow 'monkeys' at early o'clock on Saturday in suburban Melbourne and headed through the Yarra Valley and over the Black Spur toward Beechworth: a historic town famous for its associations with the gold rush in the 1850s, bushrangers a few years later (Ned Kelly was tried there in the courthouse) and as the site of an imposing Victorian asylum. Nowadays Beechworth is the home of award-winning 'snot blocks' (vanilla slices) from its bakery.
Five V8 saloons and one SP250 Dart sportscar came on the run - two Daimlers 'failed to proceed' and their owners were reduced to driving modern cars.
A fair bit of eating and drinking took place over the weekend. Actually, I suspect the route was actually plotted with the food stops in mind - the scenery and fantastic driving roads were just a bonus!

Here we are in the Tatong pub at lunchtime on the Sunday. I'm looking very pleased with my lamb shanks; Ian is chewing his enormous burger manfully!

Pub dining rooms featured heavily: the Mansfield Hotel for Saturday lunch and Saturday dinner at the Hibernian in Beechworth. Kathy was foolish enough to take on Jack in numerous post-prandial Sambuccas at the Hibernian, so she was feeling a mite delicate on Sunday.