Time was marching on by now and so we held a brief meeting and decided to go home via the Baralaba -Duringa Road.

All was going well until, at the Capricorn Highway T Junction we had a rather nasty incident where somehow during braking, Phil W clipped the tail of Paul’s new Norton sending him off his bike and on to the roadway and then when trying to avoid Paul, Phil crashed into the post of a cattle grid.

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Thankfully although quite shaken, Phil and Paul seemed relatively unhurt at first, something that was confirmed by, as luck would have it, a passing Ambulance driver. Our Jo was quick to grab our first aid kit and dressed and cleaned Paul’s wounds that were bleeding and settled both Phil and Paul down who by now had consoled each other in true Aussie mate-ship ways.

Next drama was how were we going to get the drivers and vehicles home? The RACQ didn’t want to know us and neither did any towing companies that were relatively local. That’s when we contacted Wayne Kirwan, our Chapter Liaison Officer who was also at the show with his lovely partner, Megan Perritt. Neither of them hesitated to offer us a loan of their Car Trailer and Hi lux to recover the damaged vehicles.

They drove straight over from Baralaba with the Toyota and Trailer. In the meantime, Neville, Gurney and Ewan went to work to remove Phil’s MGB from the grid and bend the left side mudguard back enough so as the tyre wasn’t jammed hard up against the body work which allowed us to move and later load the MGB with relative ease.

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As this occurred on a relatively tight bend, Phil Henry assumed Traffic controller to avoid further mishaps.

It wasn’t long before Wayne and Megan turned up and then it was all hands-on deck to first load Paul’s Bike up the front and still had enough room for Phil’s MGB.

At this stage in the story, I must commend all our members who were on the run and stopped without a second thought to help with the situation. I also must commend the members of the Jaguar drivers register who were present and stopped to help.

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Once loaded we resumed our journey back to our homes but with a reshuffle of cars and drivers. Lyle drove my MGA home, Paul went home in with Clare in her MGA via the Rockhampton Hospital for a check over at Clare and Jo’s insistence, whilst I drove Wayne’s Toyota Phil W as a passenger with the two Damaged vehicles in the Trailer.

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Paul and Clare spent considerable time in the Rockhampton Hospital while Paul had a scan and X-Rays of his suspected damaged limbs. It turns out he had a broken right leg and two broken bones in his right hand yet at the scene he was walking about albeit with a little limp, talk about tough!

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On a brighter note, it has been Sixteen (16) years last Sunday since our Chapter was first welcomed into the Greater MGCC of Qld Inc. A lot of water under the bridge and kilometers on the road has passed since then and sadly a few original members have passed away.

Unfortunately, the above incident is the first after many years and kilometers of organized runs with our MGCC and in particular our chapter, The Capricorn Chapter.