22 Aug 2009 - Today was the last official day of the Bash, with a day of activities in Alice Springs. Starting out at 8.30, the Bash cars from all states (except Tasmania) lined up and did a parade through the town, right through the centre of the mall and out to the Regatta. There were lots of people out, and it was great! Then we spent the day at the Henley on Todd Regaatta – a boat race in the Todd River, except that the river is dry and the boats are groups of people running! In fact, if there is water in the river, the event gets canceled! I've always wanted to see the Henley On Todd, and the last part where they get three huge boats that are boat frames built on truck chassis' and they fire water cannons, flour bombs, flour cannons, and everything you could think of at each other!! It's really a spectacular event, and everyone in the crowd is welcome to sign up for events; it's a great time.
After the races, we had a couple of beers at the pool at the hotel, then headed off for the last night dinner & concert – a huge event with all the Bashers from all the states (except Tasmania) in the one place. They put on a huge night with artists like Dave Gleeson & the Screaming Jets, John Paul Young, Wilbur Wilde, Frankie J Holden, Leo Sayer – just to name a few. We had a great time and got back to the hotel late for a few nights rest before heading off early tomorrow to try and get back to Brisbane (3600kms) in three days!
We've had a great time on the Bash, and would like to thank all our sponsors for your continued support – without you, we wouldn't be able to help the kids! Also a big thanks to Variety for organising such a great event, and to all our fellow Bashers for making the experience a memorable one. The Queensland Bash raised $1.35 million to help the kids, and overall for the country the Variety Bashes combined raised over $8 million! Since the concept started in 1985, the Bash has raised over $100 million for kids around Australia, and we're proud to be part of such a great organisation. Thanks Variety!
Pictures – Mischief & Mayhem and the 19th Hole; The Henley On Todd Regatta; Pictures with Dave Gleeson from the Screaming Jets after the concert.
   
   
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21 Aug 2009 - Well, a busy morning this morning as Brad woke up on a mission to fix the shockies! Aftera great breakfast put on by the Variety mobile kitchen, we replaced the front shockies, packed up camp and headed off. The car didn't want to start and when it did wasn't running right, so we opened the bonnet to find fuel just running down the carbi. Some quick shouts to shut it down before it caught on fire, and off we went to find someone who knew carbi's. It was a simple fix – basically some grit had worked it's way past the filter and was catching on the needle, not shutting off the fuel flow to the bowl then the float hit the top so the bowl was just overflowing.
After a blow through, the carbi was all good and we set out for the finish line. The dirt was not as bad at first with nice big sections of graded road, but then it got pretty rough in sections and we were worried about the back tyre blowing. But, with no more spare shockies, we had to keep rolling and keep the speed up to stay on top of the corrugations and reduce vibration to the suspension. Finally, after 180k's, we made it to the bitumen!! Granted, it was only a single-lane highway (large dirt shoulder each side for passing) but no more corrugations!! A quick stop to help some fellow Bashers (and so the boys could have a smoke) and we were on towards Alice.
About at the Tropic of Capricorn we noticed the car swaying badly from the rear, and a stop revealed that the last tyre had finally had it. We put the last spare on, and headed into Alice to the Finish Line!! After over 3200kms we had made it to the Finish!! A quick stop for lunch, and off for some new tyres, before the Bash Awards night and a great dinner and lots of drinking and celebrating.
Pictures – Fixing the Wippet; Comfort Stop with the Girls; the last of the dirt; No s--- Sherlock!; Kissing the bitumen; Tropic of Capricorn; The Finish Line in Alice Springs; Meeting Miss Australia and Miss Universe.
   
   
 
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20 Aug 2009 - Well, today was the biggest day of attrition! She came into camp tonight on the back of a Bobbie's flatbed (Mobile Workshop Delta – MWD). Last night was a late night – we finished our James Blundell concert and went to bed, only to be woken at 2.30am by my bed being flat, needing to take a leak, and the locals having a huge row just over the fence. It didn't get any better from there with lots of fighting and taunting until about 6am when we had to get up – of course, being tired didn't help my mood especially with a long drive ahead.
We spent the morning getting the great guys from 207, AW207 and AW88 to help us weld up the shockie mount that we broke yesterday. They did a great job and she held all day – but it meant we were the last car out onto the course.
We headed towards Jervios Station, which is halfway down the Plenty Highway. The road was good at first, but then you would hit unexpected rough spots that would shake the car pretty hard. We were doing pretty good until the turn off at the Plenty Highway which was pretty rough. We were pushing along at a fair clip, trying to keep it around 80kph to stay on top off the corrugations – we had just stopped twice for a comfort stop and then to replace the forgotten bag left on the roof, when the rear tyre blew. The tyres on the back were looking pretty shot at the beginning of the day, and the pounding on the rough stuff finally took it's toll. We changed the tyre, but the spare was not a light truck tyre but an ordinary road tyre which doesn't have as tough of a sidewall. This means the tyre flexes and the car gets quite squirmy in the tail end. Because of this we had to run at a slower pace, which meant we weren't skipping over the top of the corrugations but hitting them instead. After about 40k's, this got the front shockies over worked and the left hand one blew it's seal. We were worried it was engine oil and stopped, but we found it was just the shock. Not long after we blew the other side too, so we had to take it really slow and nurse it into the lunch stop – as we hadn't filled the water jug, we were out of water too and being hot and ddusty we were parched by the time we hit the lunch stop!
After loading the car onto the flatbed, we jumped onto the Shrek bus for the trip into Jervious Station – only a short 80km run, but VERY rough. We had been considering coming home that way, but we're going to be sticking to the highway now! We got it in, and after dinner happened to be chatting to someone on the walk back from dinner who had a spare set of Shockies – thanks to Peter from SES/Car 53! We're going to be up in the morning at the crack of dawn to replace them and get her down the final 180k's of dirt – then just another 120k's of sealed one-lane highway and we're in Alice Springs! Roll on that hot shower....
Pictures – Welding a rear spring mount; Hitting the NT; The 207/AW207 crew that helped get us fixed up this morning; more dusty highway; Comfort Stop in the middle of nowhere; getting loaded onto the truck for the rest of the day; On the Shrek bus.
   
   
   
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19 Aug 2009 - We started out early this morning, up at 4.30am to break camp and get on the road to our fun stop – we even beat the bag pipes up this morning! After a small hiccup getting out of camp, we were on the road at 6.15am with no running sheet, just following along behind Plucka. Our fun stop was at the 190km mark, which we had to reach by 9am. Not a difficult feat for Pluka in his 4WD, but a little tougher for us. After a couple of great river crossings – the one with water up over the top of the spot lights and a pretty strong current – we hit the dirt and pushed hard all morning. The roads were pretty good and were in the process of being graded, so we were able to move along at a pretty good speed.
By the time we got to the 190km mark though, two Bash cars had caught us – even though we had a 45 min lead. Those guys must be screaming! We setup the fun stop – a golf competition teeing off from the roof trying to get as close to the flag (a tent pole with a pair of Brad's underwear hanging from the top!) as possible. The prize (bottle of wine) went to Pino from Car 88. We packed up and headed into lunch with the tank on E – we had intended to fill up at Adels Grove before leaving, but as we left ahead of the field the pumps were not open yet. We stopped to help the girls with a flat tyre, and then headed into the lunch stop with a AW0 behind us in case we ran dry. About 500m from the service station she ran dry and coughed; but luckily we had enough momentum up that we were able to cruise in, up over the curb and skip half the line and pull up directly next to a bowser. It doesn't get much closer than that!
After a big fill (tank and jerry) we went to lunch, and met up with an old guy who was also driving his tractor around Australia, raising money for the guide dogs as his grandson is blind – and was also one of the stars of the 2007 Bash. The afternoon saw us out on a very dusty track, with lots of ruts, again no run sheet, and worse – bulldust! It is everywhere! The back seat seems to cop it the worst, and I always seem to be in the back on the worst days!! When we got in, most people commented on how I look like I have a great tan! :) About half way along we heard scraping, like something dragging the ground – Brett looked but didn't see anything so we continued on to the end of the section. But after pulling up to camp, I checked out the bottom of the car and found the passenger rear shock absorber and sheared off the bottom mount of the leaf spring, and was hanging free dragging the ground. It was also bent pretty bad from dragging, and had several big stone dents in it.
We got some help from Car 999 who used to own his own suspension shop, and he temporarily fixed the shockie for us, but the mount is rooted and needs to be welded. We're hoping to get the guys from AW207 to weld it for us but they broke their own car so we're going to nurse it through to Jervis Station and get it welded there.
Pictures – Creek Crossing; Golfing Bashing style!; Us with the girls from Car 258; Dust; Fixing a busted shockie.
   
   
   
 
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18 Aug 2009 - Today was a well deserved rest day, with a late breakfast following a fairly big concert the night before. We spent the morning making small repairs to the car – tightening the new bumper bar which had worked loose from the rattling the day before, and various other little niggly things. In the afternoon we spent the day at the gorge, swimming, bush walking an canoing. Adels Grove is a little Oasis in the middle of the desert, and it's quite an amazing place. Especially to cater for almost 600 Bashers!
I went on a sunset tour up to the top of Harry's Hill to drink wine and eat nibblies and watch the sunset. It's fascinating how quickly the sun sets out here once it gets to the horizon. Fittingly, as the sun was setting the XXXX bus came past on a test run after a day of repairs and it was quite the scene – the sun setting as a Bash vehicle ran past at full tilt in a cloud of dust!
Another concert at night although we had arranged with Plucka to do a Fun Stop the next day, which meant we needed to be out ahead of the field. This meant breakfast at 5.30am for a 6am departure – so up at 4.30am to break camp! So an early night was had by our team in preparation of a big day ahead...
Pictures – Campsite at Adels Grove; Harry's Hill; The “Girls”; Me with the Piper; The XXXX bus on a test run right at dusk; beer splattering the camera after taking too many night shots!
   
   
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17 Aug 2009 - Day 5 and we headed out of Mt Isa after a fantastic breakfast at the PCYC. Thanks also to Cameron and Georgina for their wonderful hospitality letting us stay in their spare room, and using their tools for some running repairs! After fueling and cashing up, we headed out onto the Bash route - an easy one today with only 300kms in the morning (half of which was sealed) and a short 80km stint after lunch.
The morning went smoothly with no big problems other than some very serious corrugations once we hit the dirt. Lots of dust too, which is now in every nook and cranny of the car! A couple of comfort stops and we were into Gregory Downs Hotel for lunch – some of the best Italian food I've had in ages, and probably the best lunch of the Bash! Leo Sayer is on the Bash and the story has it that he hit a rock and whacked the bash plate off the diff – so he grabbed it, polished it up and signed it and it now hangs proudly from the wall of the pub! There was an impromptu lunch concert with Leo and the Sugar Daddies; and after some brotherly love regarding who was fixing the bits of the car that fell off, we headed back down the road towards the stop. The window winder on the rear window is completely rooted now, so the back window fell open several times. Paul got sick of his bag being left on the roof at the comfort stops, so some rearranging of the bags happened, and we rigged an ockky strap to hold the window up and keep it from falling down.
Some really bad corrugations into Adels Grove saw us driving pretty slow; then a 4WD Land Cruiser came past the other way and threw up some stones and one hit the windscreen and put a huge star crack in it. A Novus temporary repair will do us for now, but we will probably need a new windscreen at some point. We got here and the contrast is amazing – from flat, dry desert we arrive at Adels Grove to find a very shady, tree-lined grove on the banks of a small river – lots of swimming, and relaxing! A big night ensued, with Leo singing a few and lots of drinking was had. Adels Grove is our rest day, so we're staying here the day – a bus trip up to the gorge is on the cards for the day, followed by a lot of relaxing.
Pictures – On the dirt; Spare parts – but no window winder; The Army boys crossing the creek in their 6WD; Lunch at Gregory Downs; Damien – I think the clown suit was better; Brad having a swim after lunch.
   
  
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16 Aug 2009 - A fairly quiet day today for us, but a big one for other Bashers! Today was the longest day of this years Bash, with over 600 kms on the Bash route. The problem for us was having to drive at night without our spotlights, so we decided to take the direct route – which was 470 of sealed road straight into Mt Isa. When we got in, we heard that there were two accidents today; luckily no one was hurt. The first was AW1111 which rolled it's trailer. Luckily, the car didn't roll and no one was hurt. They were able to repair the trailer and finish the route. The second was a little more serious – The “Super Chevy”, a custom 6-wheel beast, hit the side of a bridge, then bounced over and hit the other side and caught on fire. Luckily, both passengers escaped unharmed, although I have heard the car is pretty much destroyed.
As for us, we had an enjoyable day – while the driving was pretty tame being on the blacktop, we had several stops and it seems a lot of the field opted for the black top instead of the Bash route. We had a beer at the Walkabout Creek pub, where Crocodile Dundee was filmed. We actually did about the last 10 metres of the Bash route when we stoped for a “comfort stop” right before coming into Mt Isa. Once here, it was down to work getting some fixes made to the car.
We were unable to find a wrecker open, so we opted to high-mount some spotlights until we can get a new bumper. We bought some and after a second trip for mounting bolts, we had them in place. I wired them up and everything looked good. We also bought a flag light, and finally got that sorted out after must stuffing around because of the dodgey colour-coding used on the wires. After we had just got the spotties working, an old guy was walking past and was asking Paul how much the car was worth, as he had an old one at his place. Paul asked him if it had a bumper, and he said it did and it was ok. Paul asked if he could sell it, but apparently he had sold it to someone a couple of months ago but they just hadn't come to collect it yet. He asked if we could buy the bumper of it, and the guy told us to make him an offer – so $50 later and a few removed bolts and we had our replacement bumper bar! Unfortunately, the window winder for the back window on theirs was stuffed too, so we couldn't scavenge parts from it as ours is getting worse – we'll be lucky if the back window stays up tomorrow on the dust.
Thanks to Cameron and his family for putting us up for the night – a comfy room and shower/toilet beats the campgrounds we were supposed to stay in tonight; we stopped there to make repairs and the facilities looked pretty ordinary! The only problem is we're all in the same room, and Brett snores like an idling bulldozer!!
Pictures – Brett complaining because he was cold this morning; the Kynuna Roadhouse; The Walkabout Creek pub; The new high-mount spotties (you can also see the damaged bumper bar before it was replaced).
    
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15 Aug 2009 - Today was great – we didn't bend or break the car! We started out from Hughendon after a fantastic nights sleep – thanks so much to the Hughendon Hospital (special thanks to Cathy the DON and all the staff at the hospital) for your generosity in letting us stay in the Nurses Accommodation. You don't know how great it was to have a shower and get all that dust washed off!! We had breakfast at the local State School which was great although the lines were long. After checking out the car and tightening our nuts (wheel of course!), we headed out.
The morning section was a hard drive, with lots of deep ruts that gave the bash plate a good working out. Trying to keep on top of the ruts with the steering that wanders was challenging, and a few times we ended up with some sideways slides that got everyone's attention! We hit a few big rocks too – one that lifted the front of the car as we hit it on the bash plate square on, and another that knocked the gear linkage and knocked the car out of gear into neutral.
On the way we went through some very desolate and remote country, and in the middle of no where were two big homesteads. One is on the market if you're interested in moving into the middle of nowhere! We also visited the geographical centre of Queensland – which was interesting. We played some golf around it, and then left the New South Wales bar mat that had been dragging on our tow bar since Day 1 – a monument so people could step all over it on their way to the pinnacle of Queensland! :-) We also visited a hot spring that was pushing out water in the middle of the most dry, desolate country – the contrast was amazing, especially as the water coming out of the spring was 65C!!
We arrived at lunch safely with no damage to the car other than a leaking jerry can that dripped fuel onto the roof racks and made us dump it into the tank before it all ran down the side of the car! No more plastic jerry cans!!
We had a great lunch at Mundarah, which involved some betting on the races and a great concert put on by the school kids in appreciation of the donation Variety had made to the school. We headed out and refuelled and replaced the cap on the fuel tank – since plugging the hole in the pipe attached to the tank (that was leaking) we had noticed a lot of pressure building up in the tank. We have the original (non-locking) cap, and as it is vented it seems to be working nicely and we no longer have such a pressure build up – which also seems to have fixed the problems we were having with it running rough in the afternoons.
The afternoon section was great with wide open roads, very stark, dry country, and not too much dust, A couple of great fun stops and comfort stops, and we were in Winton for Rodeo. Staying at the showgrounds with a lot of the locals (in town for the Rodeo) the usual Bash party ensued – but after a long day of driving behind me and ahead of Paul, we left the boys to party and headed to sleep early!
Pictures – Comfort Stop; Centre of Queensland; Stepping on the Blues; The 19th Hole in silhouette; all good on a dusty road; Drinks with Damien the Clown on the side of the road.
   
  
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14 Aug 2009 - Today started off bad! After waking up at 5, we were packed and ready to go in good time, and were driving up to the pavilion to get breakfast when the “Rocky Horror” car backed up from about 20ft away, ignoring the new triple-air-horns and backed right into the front of us, Luckily, it didn't damage the radiator or transmission cooler, but his tow bar caved the entire bumper bar right in. An unfortunate side effect is that we now have no spot lights, as they are jammed into the grill and pointing straight down making night driving exceedingly difficult. We might have to high-mount some spotties in the meantime. The back window is also acting up, automatically coming open at one stage – luckily nothing fell out. One of us also accidentally left it down after our fuel stop, which meant that a couple of the bags got a little wet going through the car wash! :-)
Other than that the day went rather well from there. We had a short stint to lunch with a couple of fun stops, and a pub stop. After lunch was a very dusty run (330kms) through to Hughenden, stopping at a gorge for a spectacular sunset. We had to beg some fuel off a passing AW (Auxiliary Workshop) to get us into town as someone forgot to fuel up the empty jerry can on the roof at the morning fuel stop and we were about 10L shy of getting in! Thanks to the boys on AW708 .. especially the two guys who got a mouthful of petrol trying to get the siphon working! :-) We made some new friends along the way today, including our own impromptu fun stop hitting golf balls from the side of the road out into oncoming Bash Cars – practice balls only of course!! We've organised with Plucka to run our own Bash fun stop in the upcoming days.
We got into Hughenden and are staying at the nurses quarters which is fantastic – a real bed in an air conditioned room; and best of all, a real shower!! We were all covered in dust, it caked into everything. We must have put a tonne of mud down the drain with all four of us having to shower and get all the dust off.
Pictures – Water crossing; Country Pub; Dust!; Gorgeous Gorge.
   
  
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13 Aug 2009 - Today started off great!! We were off after breakfast through the official start with little delay, then off into the mountains where the scenery was beautiful and the roads were paved. We skipped one of the pub stops (having stopped up the road just before) and headed directly to lunch and got in early.
After lunch, we headed out onto the serious dirt for the first time this Bash, and things started to go awry! Firstly Brad thought he was Sebastian Loeb and had the old Holden more sideways than straight – which had must of us wearing some brown underwear. After some particularly bad corrigations, we started getting some weird scraping noises. After a stop and 90 minutes, we determined that the leaf springs needed realigning and work – a temporary fix ensued to get us down the road.
About 10 minutes later we came over the top of the hill to find we had no more power – the motor was running, but it wasn't getting to the wheels. Lots of vehicles stopped, including the clowns, and finally the great guys from 207 pulled up and pulled the half-stub axle out to find it had losened a wheel bearing, and the back wheel was floating off. Thank god I made that last minute trip to Indooripilly to get wheel bearings! They pressed and welded a new bearing onto the axle and away we went.
A few other little niggly things – we have too much high-powered gear and not enough generation capacity, so with fridge, lights, spotties, rotator and dust light we were draining the battery. After ditching the fridge, we were better but needed a couple of jump starts – the cable to the dual battery system is not sufficient enough to actually start the car. We'll be doing some more mods in Mt Isa!
It was a long day, exhausting, but fun. We got into camp around 9.30pm, had a feed,m setup beds and are off to sleep – until the bloody bag pipes around 5am!
Pictures: Starting out at Townsville; On the dust; The crowd that stopped to help us fix a wheel bearing!
   
   
 
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12 Aug 2009 - Today was spent driving after an early start (and not much sleep thanks to Tony!) all the way to Townsville. Went through scrutineering and got pinged for a battery strap and insufficient tie downs for our fuel cans. So off to Brett's mate Brendan's to make some running mods and fit triple air horns to replace the "duck" horn. Thanks for all the help Brendan and for shipping our unwanted gear back to Brissy for us!
Brad arrived and after a phantom electrical glitch that saw the car die and not do anything at all (lights, ignition, starter) for about 10 mins, it mysteriuosly solved itself and we were off. After getting Brad we stopped at Pip's for a well needed shower and beer, and got out accomodation sorted out - thanks for the place to stay and the comfy bed!!
We were headed off to the Bash send off do when we were about 500m short on fuel and had to push the car through the lights up to the next servo.
Pictures - Tinkering with the car at Brendan's; Pip's house;Send off party with Kirk from INXS and Layne Beachley
   
   
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11 Aug 2009 - Today was a short day of travelling - spent the morning doing some work on the car. Terry let us use his equipment and Brett welded up a jerry-can holder for mounting up on the roof rack and getting them out of the car (which we weren't able to carry in the car). Looks pretty good, and with a quick stop at super cheap for a second 20L jerry can we were on our way. A couple of bad decisions on fuel stops saw us almost run out, but thanks to a helpful road train we slipstreamed up to the next road house with a few litres to spare.
We ran into the Sewer Rats car stopped on the side of the road - overheating problems. After the radiator cap exploded off, it was full of water and we were on the way again.
We're at Mackay at the moment, staying with Tony and Tracey - thanks for the bed & some of the best tasting chicken wings I've had in ages!!
Pictures - the car all decked out for 2009; the new jerry-can holder; Brett & Tony.
   
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10 Aug 2009 - Left today for Rockhampton!! Had a good days drive, with no incidents. Car seems reasonably economical (when you're not flogging it) and will get up to 110kph with a bit of a run up!! Staying the night in Rocky and heading for Mackay in the morning. Only a short drive tomorrow, but then an early start on Wednesday to get to Townsville before 3pm for scruitineering. Found one of the best pie's ever in Gin Gin - at the cafe on the main street. Can highly recommend!! :-)
Thanks to Terry and Kris for the nights stay in the 'Man Cave' and a great steak with homemade mushroom sauce!! And of course for the use of the welder and all the gear!!
Pictures - Brett getting his ass handed to him in Wii Golf!
   
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8 Aug 2009 - Everyone around mums place for a fairwell Bar-B-Q. Gave the car a bath and put on all the sponsors stickers. Nathan still with work to do on lights for the flag but we are ready to drive off early Monday morning for Rockhampton as our 1st overnight stay on way to Townsville. We plan to keep everyone up to date with pics and stories from each day so stay tuned!
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1 Aug 2009 - Only one week until we leave to head to Townsville for the start. We have asuccessfull Movie Night on Friday and watch Johnny Depp die a gruesome death in Public Enemeies great special effects
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23 Jul 2009 - We managed to secure a relatively new set of front springs and since our old set were in need of retempering we decided to change them over and check out the front end. Fantastic result got an extra 2 inches of height which flattened the whole chassis out.
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18 Jul 2009 - Scrutineering last week. All checked out ok. We expected we would not have any problems as it is the same car from last year. Finally got the grass on the roof and we also moved the gauges from under the dashboard to above the radio in the dashboard. Looks like a GTS now.
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9 Jul 2009 - Had to get Nathan and his Dad Kent over tonight to fault find a indicator problem that kept changing with the wind and tilt of the earths axis. It turned out to be a faulty earth on the drivers front indicator. Nathan hooked up the last of the LED flashers. I think that will be enough to be seen from space.
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5 Jul 2009 - Brett and I went over to Mums place to work on the car on Sunday afternoon. We finally got the formply on the new roofrack so we now have a golf green on the roof again. 1 week to scruitineering. I will be madly rushing about hooking up the high mount tail lights the one beacon and the dust light so that Sir Albert chief scruitineerer does not get angry with us.
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28 Jun 2009 - Nathan and I got together on Sunday arvo. Brett and Brad could not back up after a big Saturday night at Bretts 40th. We managed to hook up the green LEDs and they look great. We may have to use them sparingly as the may cause someone to have a seizure.
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25 Jun 2009 - The planned get together on the weekend to work on the car did not happen because of the rain, but we did manage a round of Golf in the weather, we needed a boat instead of a golf buggy. All the families got together last night to watch Qld trounce the Blues in Game 2 of the State of Origin. Nathan turned up with Erin his wife, and brought along a set of really funky green LED lights he had purcahsed online that will look fab on the car, and go well with the Golf theme. We will be installing those on Sunday late afternoon, after Brett has his big 40th birthday party on Saturday night,hence the afternoon timeslot.
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13 Jun 2009 - Finally had a get together when we could work on the car(previous get together was to watch Qld flog the Blues in State of Origin). We installed a second battery under the hood which should help with the running of lights, radios, and most importantly the Fridge. Nathan(the owner who lent us his XP Falcon-car NASA- so that we may go on our first Bash in 2007) started hooking up power to get to the new roofrack/golf green. Plan to get together after a social golf game next weekend for more of the same.
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10 Jun 2009 - “Ross River to Todd River”
Variety Club motoring event
Townsville to Alice Springs
13-22 August 2009
Car 157
Variety Background
Variety Queensland is a registered charity that supports disadvantaged children in Queensland.
It is an affiliate of Variety Clubs International which started in Pittsburgh on 22 Oct 1928 for the purpose of aiding handicapped and underprivileged children in all corners of the Globe.
The Variety Bash
Their major fund raising event annually is the Variety Bash, which entails 30+year old cars being driven thousands of kilometres over rugged outback dirt roads. Not a race, but a celebration of 12 months hard work fund raising.
The Bash started in 1985, when adventurer Dick Smith took a group of mates from Bourke to Burketown in their old cars, raising money for charity along the way. All of the money raised went to the Variety Club of Australia to further its support of sick, disabled, or disadvantaged children. The Variety Club has staged the Bash since 1985 and in the spirit of the original idea has been retained.
Each bash entrant must raise at least $8000 for Variety.
In total the 2008 Bash raised $2 million net for disadvantaged children in Queensland
Remember I said they were efficient……..the 2008 Bash included 200 vehicles and over 600 people. But only two were paid staff. The balance were volunteer officials or people like ourselves who spent their own money to prepare a Bash car then separately raised money for Variety.
Variety work at the coal face donating things like wheelchairs, other specialized equipment, a mini bus to transport handicapped children to a special school etc.
Summary
This document outlines the plan for our car –Car 157- ‘The 19th Hole’ for entry into the Variety Club Bash 2009(Townsville to Alice Springs)
“Ross River to Todd River”
Variety Club motoring event
Townsville to Alice Springs
13-22 August 2009
Car 157
Each entry pledges to raise at least $8000 for Variety Queensland. This money is donated directly to Variety Queensland and should be fully tax deductible to the donor.
The 2009 Bash will start in Townsville in August and end at Alice Springs to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the event. We will be met in Alice Springs by all the other state ‘Bashers’ all in one place. In those 10 days, bash participants will both raise further funds and contribute to the welfare of the local children via “fines” for breaches of the rules, not breaching the rules etc!! (Participants are encouraged to both have fun and stretch their imaginations to further their fundraising for Variety while maintaining 100% adherence to Variety safety rules.)
Please note that the purchase / preparation/ repairs to the car as well as petrol, accommodation & meals etc are entirely the responsibility of the team participants. The funds from donors will be receipted by Variety Queensland and should be tax deductible to the donor.
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25 May 2009 - Welcome to the launch of the new 19th Hole website!!!
Thanks Nathan for the website,and welcome as our new team member this year. (previously Car captain of team NASA)
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