Jarrahdale Tavern
Neal Crocker
It was a great day for a car run, nice mild weather for everyone to enjoy. It was also great to see a run heading to the southern suburbs. Jarrahdale is a small historic town located 45 km south-east of Perth, set in the Darling Range. The name is derived from its situation in a jarrah forest. Established in the late 1800s as the state's first major timber milling operation, it played a key role in the development of Western Australia through the exportation of jarrah around the world.
The kids and I travelled down the “back way” going down Tonkin Highway, then onto Albany Highway and lastly South Western Highway. We were about 10 minutes behind Clint and Lisa travelling down the same route. It was great for us to take a more scenic route and we were lucky enough to see, in convoy, a number of old Fords also travelling in that direction as well. As we entered the city of Byford we were admiring all the statues along the road, this was part of a recent 2018 street art project from Byford Progress Association, five large sculptures were erected to mark the entrance to the town. If you would like to learn more about this please visit the artist’s website - www.lenzuks.com/news.
As we were on the lookout for more sculptures we saw Clint and Lisa’s van parked on the side of the road near the local Caltex / Starmart. We presumed that they were getting some snacks from the local store there before continuing to drive down. But little did we know at the time, they stopped there because they saw Jim waiting in his car, as he thought that was our meeting point.
When we arrived at the Shell service station we all gathered at the corner of the intersection, and a number of people were admiring our cars. In fact, a friend of Tom Howard and Peter Tonkin just happened to be in the area and pulled in to say hello! What a small world!
While waiting, some of us were talking about the Federal Election result from the night before. I was getting some great insight from Lisa into the processes that the Electoral counters go through on the day. She finished up around 11pm that night, she was in lock down until the count was over!
Once everyone had arrived we then decided to head off to the Jarrahdale Tavern as it is apparently notorious for being very busy and not being able to find car parking. We thought that we would head off with enough time to spare, however to our surprise when we arrived at the Tavern the car park was full with, get this…. olds Fords! The same old Fords that the kids and I saw coming on the way down! Their club obviously had the same thing on their minds to have a nice pub lunch as part of their car run! If you would like to know more about the Jarrahdale Tavern visit their Facebook page - www.facebook.com/jarrahdaletavern1
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After a quick lap around the tavern, we managed to find a small parking area across the road next to the old Post Office Museum and Shop (https://www.jarrahdale.com/jarrahdale-museum-history/). Luckily, we all squeezed in with enough room to spare…. Soon after we were seated I looked back at where we parked and noticed that cars were everywhere and pulled up on the side of busy Jarradale Road. Any later and we would have had nowhere to park!
We sat down at a really nice location out on the top veranda looking down to the cars parked outside. After getting our seats we made our way to place our orders for lunch and enjoy a drink. The service was fantastic, the quality of the meals were excellent and they came out of the kitchen so quickly we couldn’t believe it, although I think Gloria may have thought differently as she had to wait for her pork ribs!
We had a great turn out for the day and even Tom and Bridgett’s son, Sam, decided to drop past and say hello while he was in the area. After sharing a nice meal with great company it was time to head off. However, this time Tom and Bridgett came up with a surprise for us all…. with suggesting that we take a further drive past Serpentine Dam and Falls! This was a great surprise and we all agreed it would great to go past. We thanked the staff at the Tavern for a wonderful lunch and made our way back to our park cars…. As we got closer we noticed that we were boxed in by other cars, one particular large 4wd was blocking Jim and Tim & Bridgett’s car, some of us were thinking about what to do…. But then Sam pulled out his car keys and jumped in!! Phew, that was a relief.
Ken and Gloria left us at that time as they only recently went to their Dam and Falls only a couple of weeks before. The rest of us made our way to the Serpentine Dam. Once we got there we had a quick look around, took a quick rest break for people that forgot to take one at the tavern and then we decided to drive over in convoy. Cameron and Mitchell did a quick video of the cars driving over the Dam to try and replicate some old club footage of the cars doing a car run there many years ago. The videos are now on our website for you to view. After doing a drive over the Dam we proceeded to Jarrahdale Falls, however on arrival we found out that we had to pay $11 per car to get in. This was a bit steep considering we only wanted to drop off for a few minutes to see the Falls, so we instead decided to head-off home from that point.
Just before Jim (with Clint and Lisa) and myself (with Cameron and Mitchell) head off, Martin and Bev left slightly earlier than us and they were heading a different way to us on the way back. After Jim dropped off Clint and Lisa back to their van that they left in Byford earlier that morning and after I picked up an ice cream for myself and the kids, we headed off again. But on the way home as we went through an intersection, we saw Martin and Bev magically appear and they joined us heading home, at least until they got their bearings, then went up Roe Highway. Overall it was a great day out and everyone thoroughly enjoyed it, unfortunately, John Ingham had the flu and couldn’t make it. I am sure he would have loved to had a nice lunch with us.
Thanks to Martin & Bev and Tom & Bridgett for organising a great car run!