The Swap Meet Odyssey
The only time of the year I now venture down south to Victoria is in April when I can attend several swap meets and rallies in the one trip. Leaving here on the 24 March I headed south to attend the Llanelly Motorcycle Swap Meet, conducted by the Bendigo Historic Motorcycle Club about 40 km west of that city. Llanelly, like so many other locations in Victoria was an early gold mining area. A school was built in 1882 and operated as such until closing in 1948. The building is a very solid brick structure on 2 acres of land and the club was able to obtain a lease for a nominal fee about 13 years ago. They are also engaged in the maintenance of the building and surrounding grounds and provides a very good clean toilet block as well a solid structure adjacent to the school building for cooking of the morning meal. Traders were able to set up on the Saturday in preparation for Sunday trading. A very good twocourse meal was provided on the Saturday evening. The swap meet held on the Sunday saw several additional traders and buyers arriving, not in large numbers but those that did attend spent wisely. Traders in the main had good sales.
On 3rd April I attended the Scoresby Motorcycle Swap Meet held at the Australian Steam Museum, Fern Tree Gully Road, Scoresby. This is usually a very well conducted event with a large number of traders and buyers, however the weather was not the best as light showers were persistent on the Saturday and looked like continuing Sunday. There were still some restrictions in place owing to Covid, so this resulted in a much smaller number of traders and buyers attending, hence most traders were well down on their usual number of sales.
The following weekend, 9th and 10th April saw me at Miraboo North – set up on Saturday and trade Sunday. Just over 2,000 people came through the gate. The main attraction was a Show & Shine which drew some 135 machines, mostly Harley-Davidson. About a dozen or so traders attended however there were very few people looking for British motorcycle parts. The organisers, the local Lions Club used the proceeds from this event for various charity causes – one being the purchase of hay sent to farmers in the NSW flood-affected areas. However what attracted my attention were several Hinckley Triumphs used for speed attempts on the salt lakes, owned and prepared by Ken Robinson who is the proprietor of a motorcycle high performance and dyno tuning business, Dynojet in Moe.
Ken told me that he grew up around motorcycles when his father had a Yamaha and Harley-Davidson dealership. The first machine that he painted and undertook the assembly of was a 250cc T20 Suzuki Hustler. His father sponsored several riders with machines like TZ250 and FZR600 Yamahas, with Ken as spanner man for those riders. He has a range of motorcycles, a couple of his favourites being a 1935 350 S.V. BSA as well as a 1938 model, and a Malvern Star Auto Cycle. He is presently undertaking the restoration of a 1949 5T Triumph.
The following weekend, Easter, saw me at the swap meet site at the Shannons Insurance Broadford Bonanza, but did get to see a small part of the events at the road racing circuit. Covid restrictions were still in place in Victoria and this no doubt impacted with a noticeable reduction in the number of people in attendance. I also attended the dinner on the Saturday evening where interviews were undertaken by the UK motorcycle writer Alan Cathcart with Mal Pitman, Michael Dawson and Shawn Giles. My final assignment was the All British Rally at Newstead, which was well organised and well attended. Many make the annual pilgrimage from various interstate locations and I was told that there was some 800 entries with about 400 one day visitors. As usual the Saturday ride was to Maldon, however other groups of various classic and vintage motorcycle clubs join in the ride resulting in about 1400 machines lining the street at Maldon. One machine that caught my eye at the ABR was the 80cc BSA Easy Rider belonging to Chris Hearn who in no way resembles Peter Fonda. Just to wrap up, don’t forget the Nabiac Automotive Swap Meet on Sunday 31st July in the grounds of the National Motorcycle Museum in Clarkson St, Nabiac – strictly car, truck and motorcycle parts only. Traders only admitted from 12 noon Saturday and buyers at 7 am Sunday. Info from the museum on 0474 788 132. Proceeds to Camp Quality. ■