Twenty-four FABAC members in 12 cars enjoyed a unique tour August 14th that included beautiful Saint John River scenery, a historic site visit, a private viewing of one man's British car collection and an awards dinner at the end. The tour took FABACians in super summer sunshine from Fredericton, through Cambridge Narrows to the village of Kingston. Here. we visited the John Fisher Memorial Museum (and its facilities!) and given a conducted tour of the oldest church in New Brunswick standing on its original foundation. (Trinity Church was built by Loyalists in 1789, and is still in regular use as are many of its original wooden pews.)
Then it was onto the "estate" property of Tony Rickett and his family where we visited by special invitation. Here we parked our cars on a riverside lawn below Tony's vineyard and had our picnic lunches in a shady beach area. Some of us paddled in the river, some of us played horseshoes and all of us visited Tony's garage to see his restored Jaguar XKE, Triumph TR2 and TR3A and Austin-Healey 100 British classic sports cars. The Rickett's hospitality extended to opening a guest cottage for our use and donating two bottles of wine as prizes for the special driving skill competition.
The competition involved cars being driven with driver's eyes closed to a marked point on the ground. The winners were Alex Hoffman (Triumph TR6) best British car and Dennis Williams (Chrysler-Maserati) best non-British car. Later in the afternoon, the tour continued along the river road to the Grand Bay-Westfield ferry via a detour recommended by Doug and Nancy LaPaire who knew about local road construction.
The last leg of the day's activity was the drive along the opposite bank of the river to the Evandale Inn where arrangements had been made for dinner and the awards presentation.
It was mid evening before tour participants headed for home in the glow of the setting sun. A great tour and not a single breakdown en route!
Report by John B.
John's photos here.
No comments:
Post a Comment