Air Force And AA Keep Charity Convoy Rolling

Air Force And AA Keep Charity Convoy Rolling As Greymouth Mayor Tony Kokshoorn flags Variety Trillian Bash away

Greymouth Mayor Tony Kokshoorn was on hand this morning at Grey Main School to greet the Bash. He's met many of the teams on previous visits to donate grants and bicycles to local kids, and was ready to wave the starting flag as the convoy left Greymouth. But for some teams, the day did not continue as smoothly as it began.

Keeping classic cars going can take constant maintenance. Doing it while you’re driving thousands of kilometres over often unhospitable roads is even harder, and this year’s Bash owes much to the NZ Air Force mechanical crews and to our AA service car.

That was proved again today when the 1961 Fishpot ladder truck hit trouble, the Mooloo rig needed some TLC, the GT Radial car had a puncture – and finally the wonderful Subbus – made from two 1958 Bedford School buses welded together – died as it crossed Arthur’s Pass.

A Methven garage opened up and the Air Force and AA crews managed to get it going long enough for it to limp into town, where it was up a hoist and being worked on as the Bash crews headed to bed.

It had been a busy day that had started early at Grey Main School for breakfast, where mayor Tony Kokshoorn told the Bashers they “do a lot of great work, for a lot of smiles, on a lot of young people’s faces."

The crews split, with some teams heading to St Patricks School and Dobson School, while the other group drove to Blackball to plant fruit trees, shovel rocks, and undertake plumbing tasks at the tiny school.

Then it was all on to Lake Brunner School before the crossing of Arthur’s Pass.

Tomorrow the convoy will hand over bicycles to underpriveleged kids at Methven Primary School, Raikaia School, Chertsey School, Fairton School, and Ashburton Borough School before the event ends at Caroline Sound Shell, Timaru, at 3.30pm, where the last of the bicycles will be given away.

They've been rejoined by the BesStart crew fresh from a clutch rebuild at Blenheim Air Force Base – and hopefully will see a freshly-fettled Subbus complete the final day.

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