A friend of mine has a family farm in Bridgetown and suggested that we should venture down there for the second annual Warren-Blackwood Heritage Rally. The rally is organized by a southern chapter of the Veteran Car Club. This sounded like a great opportunity so we prepped up the DKW and headed south.
The drive was excellent and the DKW performed wonderfully - up to Donnybrook. From Perth to Donnybrook is flat with good quality roads the DKW was able to hit 85 miles per hour and a good run. The engine never missed a beat. But after Donnybrook the landscape becomes one of low hills and here the DKW does not perform as well. Going uphill the revs begin to drop, the car begins to slow and you need to drop down a gear to get back up into the power band. There were times when we even needed to drop into second gear! Chasing the power band in a DKW is not relaxing driving.
But we did make it there safely - if later than we anticipated. We did stop for lunch at the famous Dardanup Bakery. It's well worth a detour for their award winning bakery products.
The DKW in Bridgetown
Bridgetown is blessed with lovely heritage architecture and is busy enough to not feel like a ghost town.
The Fremantle Hotel
We stayed in the Big 4 Caravan Park. It lies just across the bridge and a short walk to the centre of town. https://www.big4.com.au/caravan-parks/wa/south-west/big4-bridgetown
The Heritage Rally started from the carpark next to the bridge (next to the caravan park). A lovely Citroen DS wagen
We weren't sure how many people would be attending, but it turned out there were 79 registered entries. That's an excellent turnout.
Bjorn's magnificent 1952 Saab 92B. A rarity even in Sweden
Renault, Austin and Renault
Volvo 1800 coupe
And a Volvo 1800 wagon
The rally was organized through the local chapter of the Veteran Car Club. They even created rally plaques for attendees. We were car 51.
And then it was away, driving through the pleasant local scenery
As I mentioned at the start, the countryside around Bridgetown is rolling hills so whenever we were going uphill, we fell further back in the pack.
This was our usual view - tail gun charlie.
It also didn't help that we (and two other vehicles) missed a turn. We were right at the back of the pack, then we missed a turn and had to go back, but we did catch up eventually. When on flat ground, the DKW is very fast!
Renault Gordine, Volvo Amazon, Citroen DS and the DKW.
Trailing Jim's beautiful Citroen DS.
The oldest cars in the rally were two Ford Model As.
The scenery was quite beautiful, even when it rained.
FJ Holden
Bedford truck
After a loop around the area, we rendezvous at Greystones estate.
Greystones house
We parked on the escarpment overlooking Bridgetown
Bedford truck
There were intermittent showers when we were driving and it looked as though the heavens would open when we arrived but fortunately the rain held off.
Lined up for the BIG photo
Hello! After coffee, photos and a chat, we all headed back towards town.
1940 Buick
1952 Saab 92B
Back into town
One of the Ford Model As
While most attendees went on to the Fremantle Hotel for lunch, we opted to head home. Given our experience on the drive down, we knew that the drive would take us at least an hour longer than driving in a modern car, which would mean we'd be looking at getting home around 5pm. We were also a little worried about the weather. Due to an electrical fault, the DKW's wipers failed on the Sunday. We were lucky enough to dodge the rain on the rally, but serious weather was rolling in and we wanted to outrun it. The drive to Donnybrook was all up and down, fast and slow. It began to seriously rain outside Balingup, so we stopped there for lunch and waited it out, before setting off again.
The rest of the journey was uneventful and we made it home around 5.30pm.
All it all it was a terrific trip and a lot of fun. There are lots of little towns in the south-west which host classic cars and rally throughout the year so we'll be keeping an eye open for interesting country journeys in the future.
