PAGE 25 2022 AUTUMN EDITION
How Fast Can a Porsche Go? By Trevor Hill
If you ever get the opportunity to participate in an Offsite event, I can thoroughly recommend you jump at the chance. I was fortunate to be asked by the “One Who Never Sleeps” (ie. Matt), to help at an OFF event in October last year. The OFF was appropriately called “To the Milky Way & Back” by the Porsche Owners Club of WA.
The next day, “Astronomy-101 Obi-Wan Kenobi” joined me, and we set off for a trip to the monastery in the historic settlement known as New Norcia. Now if you have never been to New Norcia, I strongly suggest you take the 1.5-hour drive and check it out. There are great buildings with heaps of historical significance and superb dark skies.
According to Matt, this event was supposed to be for a smallish group of Porsche owners and was to consist of a presentation night in New Norcia, then off to Paynes Find for the following evening and a viewing night under the stars. Well, that sounded quite a reasonable event, but it seemed that Porsche drivers like looking at the night sky, (and driving in the country), and the number of attendees tripled just before the event. So, what to do?
The road to New Norcia is now so safe and easy to drive on, to say that time really flew by is probably an understatement, especially with someone as knowledgeable as Arthur as your co-pilot. We discussed all sorts of subjects along the way and found out that we had many other common interests, over and above our love of astronomy.
Matt, along with the Porsche Club, decided a Star Fleet convoy was the answer, and the “To the Milky Way & Back” event grew to two groups with over 12 Porsches or 24 club members that would take place over 3 days. Group 1 had Friday night at New Norcia and Saturday night at Paynes Find. Group 2 had Saturday night at New Norcia and Sunday night at Paynes Find. I was assigned to the first fleet along with “Astronomy-101 Obi-Wan Kenobi” (aka Arthur Harvey). Over the weekend, Arthur became known as Astronomer 1, and I as Astronomer 2. For us, the whole event commenced on a Thursday evening when we picked up the “Mothership” from Budget Hire in Welshpool & proceeded to the Perth Observatory and loaded up the astronomical equipment required for the trip. Taking control of the mothership, I drove it to its’ overnight docking station at my place.
On arrival, we found that several of the flying Porsches had already landed at the main hall where the evenings presentations were to be held. We contacted the local managers of the monastery and were able to pick out a suitable place to set up our equipment for the Astro-based presentation. We were then guided to where our private accommodation for the night would be, which was in the Nun’s quarters… Now I’m not superstitious or religious, but there is something kind of different about sleeping in a convent, but later that night, it did not seem to bother me, as I had a great night’s sleep. Having settled in, we walked back to the main hall, which was previously the Old New Norcia Hotel, where we were made very welcome by the Milky Way Porsche owners, who would be the members of our first mission. Our presentations went off without a hitch, as Arthur and I took our new travel friends on a journey to the edge of the universe and back, along with some anecdotes, facts and some show and tell stories as well.
