Ballart Sat

So we arrived in Ballarat at what I used to think were my cousins house, turns out they are actually my Mother's cousins…Dunno what that makes them to me.  Other than almost strangers lol.  Like I said I have only met them a few times in my life.

So almost within 5min Rodney has me out in his Garage which is 3 maybe four cars wide and easily 3 cars deep.  He warns me and apologises for the mess….…What mess have you seen my garage??????
So here is what I saw.

Norton in process of being restored on the bench. The Suzuki which has been on many trips including the red centre to see Ayres Rock etc.
The old Yam which was his first road bike ever and it's twin which was bought later to it's right.
The last for the FJ1200 and the fully restored Norton Comando both of these regular riders.

Quite a collection, he also had an original XS1 back in the day and is looking for another.

Later that night which we never stopped talking bikes I asked so if all that is in the little garage, then what have ya got in the big shed. The big shed is just that, twice as long as the garage and two storeys in height.  Well lets just say there was I morris minor ute, a Datsun 180B (I think) ute, 4 of the same old Classics for resto (some strange rare thing I had never heard of before), a fully worked 5.7l SS comodore, his daughters lil car and the tray truck… All with room to spare.

Nice huh don't we all wish we had that space!

Sat morning up 5AM and down the swapmeet 6am, still dark.
Just cracking light by the time we walk through to the bike section, lots of guys still curled up in their swags surrounded by piles of discarded tinnies.

Most of the bikes and parts were of this vintage.

This was a really cool lil ride!

$23k & $30K from memory and a only a few years between the models

Quirky lil scooter showing off this fellas polishing services.

Aliens 0 Predator 1

Lots of early 1950s F100s & Chevs…..
I want one damn it!

I wandered constantly untill 3:30pm….so 9.5Hrs with no food and not enough water it was forecast 37Deg in Melb and out there at the swap there was no shade.   It was a good experiance and I counted around 300 bike specific stalls in that section, of the 2300 total. But there was plenty of bike parts mixed in with the car stalls.  I enjoyed the day throughly but was a little dissapointed that there wasn't more old bikes (50-70s). They were nearly all old 20s & 30s models. Lots of Indisn Scouts, BSA, Triumphs. Few Vincents, Ariels, & similar. Not much Harley, chopper or Custom type stuff.

I didn't get any of the stuff I had on my list, like risers, dog bones, Z bars, etc.

I did score a bit of loot though.  All of which was quite heavy lugging around.