Set-up is powering on for the CMCA National Rally in Gunnedah despite the rain.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The 33rd Campervan and Motorhome Club of Australia (CMCA) rally has taken over the Gunnedah Showground complex for eight days of entertainment, sight-seeing, tours and activities in the shire.
Almost 250 volunteers are buzzing around the site, with 700 motor homes rolling into town ahead of the official opening on Sunday.
Rally manager Paul Flynn jokes that CMCA really stands for Carry My Chair Around and there are plenty of items being carried around the site as the volunteers prepare for an influx of members and visitors over the weekend.
READ MORE:
Women form a line like marching ants as they carry shiny silver urns across the show ring to the 65m by 25m marquee, which is filling with white plastic chairs as a stage is laid and a sound system constructed.
In one corner, Gunnedah Rural Musuem’s Billy Barry and CMCA member Lyn McLaughlin battle to position a wayward female manniquin next to a 1956 Morris Commercial lorry, which has been brought in from the shed on the Oxley Highway.
Out in the grounds, the museum’s orange 1955 Chamberlain diesel tractor is eye-catching against the white of the marquee, which is quickly being hemmed in by motor homes being maneuvered into place by drivers under the direction of volunteers in fluoro yellow hi-vis jackets.
The rally could generate more than $2 million in revenue for Gunnedah’s economy, based on spending from the 2013 CMCA rally in Narrabri. The funds will come at an opportune time as Gunnedah struggles to push on through the drought.