What a week I've had! Early Saturday 4th November - as in 4.30am! - Mum was up and about the house preparing to leave. I, however, did not drag myself out of bed until 5am. We were due to be picked up just after 6am. Needless to say, the convoy did not arrive until about 7am!!
And we were off!!!! The Camp Quality Escarpade - the Waikato/Bay of Plenty contingent anyway! Our group consisted of two fire engines, one ambulance, one 1962 Buick and one Mercedes. The vehicles entered have to be either pre-1975 or a novelty vehicle. My mate Ali was driving the ambulance as we were short a driver, so I got dragged into that one. Originally we were all going to be in the big fire engine.
We headed down to Palmerston North, where the Escarpade was due to leave on Sunday morning. We finally arrived a mere 8 hours later, with the organiser wondering what on earth had happened to us! The first collection happened that Saturday night at the Guy Fawkes Speedway - and a very good collection, I might add!
We headed off bright and early, on Sunday morning, chugging towards Hawkes Bay, via the Tui Brewery! We spent 3 nights there collecting from the Napier, Hastings and surrounding areas, which also included a day trek up to Wairoa. We also visited some of the little country schools along the way to do sunsmart promotions. That was heaps of fun. One school did a little "haka" for us. It was more along the lines of Old McDonald Had A Farm! It was brilliant! We were in Napier city for Melbourne Cup evening, so hit all the local punters for their winnings (or not!).
From Hawkes Bay, we headed back to Palmerston North for the night. The next morning, we were on the More FM breakfast show. Well we were talked about. We were all physically standing on 4 main intersections coming into the city area. Even though it was pouring with rain and the wind driving the rain in horizontally, people were very generous and opened their windows - and their wallets!
From there we headed down through Levin (5 degrees and snow on the hills!) and right down the Kapiti Coast. Then we headed up to Wanganui for the day. Our "dash for cash" through town even had a police escort!! They were a bit prudish because we could only make limited noise and only do one block of town before we had to park our vehicles somewhere.
We finished the Escarpade in Palmerston North on Saturday 11th November. We hit the town hard in several places, and once again, I found myself standing on a traffic island on the main road coming into Palmerston North from the north!
Big hello to my driver, Ali, and a huge hello to Dodgey Doris - our Dodge Ambulance that got us safely around the lower North Island. Thanks for a FANTASTIC week away. It was with a great bunch of people, who raised a lot of money for a great cause. It was confirmed that we raised $66,000!! Go
Camp Quality!
Team Pink at the Tui Brewery
Ali driving Dodgey Doris, the ambulance
- sorry, more photos to come as I’m waiting to get them from someone else
