2025 Bay to Birdwood

The annual Bay to Birdwood Rally in Adelaide has once again been run, with a few of our members taking part.

This year, the participating members included Adam Furniss in his Ford Falcon XB GT, Brian Jay in his Ford Capri GT, and Mario Cilia in his Ford Escort. And for moral support, I tagged along (Simon P).

Brian made sure we were all ready to head off at 7am from Melton, I'm sure the rest of us would've preferred a sleep-in. Luckily we had a beautiful sunny morning to start the 5-day trip. The road trip included a Breaky stop at Chris 'n Di's Bakery in Stawell. This was followed by a milkshake stop at Henry 'n Rose's Café in Keith. The final stop on Thursday was at Murray Bridge which included a sleepover and dinner at the Murray Bridge Hotel. Adam is still raving about the steak sandwiches he had for dinner from there. A stop in Murray Bridge is highly recommended, and we cannot praise the staff highly enough from both our Motel and the MB Hotel.

Friday morning saw us head off to Glenelg in Adelaide, where we were met at the Glenelg Motel with an array of cars and people from all over. We met up with a friendly group from Port Augusta, who were there with a 1958 Edsel Ranger and a tough, stroked, Chevelle Malibu.

Saturday morning then saw us head off to the Immigration Museum in Adelaide where the concourse cars were on display. This is where the owners are required to dress in attire that is representative of the era of their car. Cars ranged from 1904 to the 1990s. This is an amazing sight to see. After a couple of hours walking around in the Adelaide heat, we felt that we should be rewarded with a stop at a local watering hole….Jimmy's Bar and Grill, in a basement bar. Cheers! We finished the day with the usual washing of the cars and dinner at the Watermark Hotel and a walk around Glenelg at night.

The big day arrived on Sunday, when we started the rally at West Beach in Adelaide, followed by the 74km trek to Birdwood Motoring Museum for the car display. The weather was perfect and slightly overcast, however, this didn't stop a few cars from overheating on the way up to Birdwood. Thankfully our cars all made it up without a hitch. In fact, our 3 cars ran perfectly for the whole trip.

We headed back on Monday, and it rained for a lot of the way. I think that was Mother Nature's way of telling us that she provided us with a perfect weekend, and that we shouldn't take it for granted.

In Memoriam: A thank you to Brian Jay for providing some items in memory of Barrie Goodrick who was a regular attendee in the past, and John Mallia who was also a regular attendee up to last year, and sadly passed away a few days after returning from the 2024 Bay to Birdwood Rally. Cheers to you Barrie and John.

by Simon Palmieri

Members can check out all the awesome photos taken by Simon on the trip, by logging in to the Members Portal