Ahuroa Trek a success!

Hi Everyone,

As you may be aware, over the weekend the Ahuroa Hall Advisory Committee and Ahuroa School ran a very successful two day, fully catered horse trek around the Ahuroa Hills.   Together, as a community, we have raised a significant amount of money for Ahuroa School and Hall, (approximately $8000) and we should be very proud!

As usual, it didn’t come together without a bit of blood, sweat and tears and there are a number of people in this wonderful little community who need recognizing.

Firstly,  thank you to all the farmers and landowners who allowed us to ride over their properties, moved their stock , or left gates open to make it easier for us. It would not have been possible without the generosity of these people and families.

Thank you to Nicky and Dan Berger who opened up their home and farm as hosts of the trek, and, what wonderful hosts they were.  Nicky coordinated a wonderful team of community members to cater four meals for the trekkers which was hailed as a great success.  Dan worked tirelessly in the background as well, doing the lamb on the spit, organising landowner permissions, fixing water troughs for the grazing horses and so on.

Thank you to Rachel Jenks as well for her efforts to make this a success for our community – she helped promote and advertise the trek as well as bringing together two days of trekking over gorgeous country and amazing views! You led a great trek Rachel, thank you!

Thank you to Karyn and Sue ( and their family) , they were also wonderful hosts for Sundays lunch and contributed a lot of their time to make sure things ran smoothly, such as getting the horses drinking water to treacherous places and making sure road crossings went safely!

There was a number of parents and community members who gave up all or part of their weekend for this event.  I’m not going to mention specific names, because I’m too scared I might miss one, but we are SO grateful to all these individuals and families, they were fantastic at getting stuff done and we had lots of fun to boot! Thanks Team!

Thank you to all the parents and community members who contributed their time and energy by providing a beautiful array of salads and baking to the trek, and boy, were they well received by the trekkers 🙂

We also received generous cash donations  which helped pay for the food or portaloo costs – we greatly appreciate all those who contributed in this way as well.  A special mention to Steven Laws who is giving us an amazing contribution of $400, simply because he wanted to support a great family event.

New World Warkworth also sponsored some of the catering costs of the trek – so lets make sure we support them too!

Finally, but specifically, I need to thank the Ahuroa Hall Advisory committee and school Board/PTFA members who were huge at making this event a success – a great team to work with!

Bring on Ahuroa Trek 2021!

From Jo Bullock
Ahuroa Hall Advisory Committee Chair

Support for Aran Animal Rescue, a long distance fundraising ride – tomorrow.

Support for Aran Animal Rescue, a long distance fundraising ride – tomorrow.

Hi, it’s your Grapevine admin, Chris here and we’re at it again – fundraising for Aran Animal Rescue who are a small but active group of volunteers who manage to rescue approximately 200 dogs each year from regional pounds who would otherwise have been put to sleep. In support of them, we are motorcycle riding 1600+km within 24 hours on the year’s shortest day – tomorrow.

Aran focus on attempting to rescue death-row dogs, and have built up strong relationships with a number of council run pounds, around New Zealand, predominantly from Northland to Whanganui. They get told when a pound has exhausted their own avenues to rehome a dog, and given an option to up-lift it, out of the area, and try to find a new forever home for them. This process is costly and will often involve having to transport, get unwell dogs back to good health, de-sexing, fostering, advertising, vetting new owners, home visits and more. It’s tireless work.

They manage to do this for around 200 dogs each year. So, for the past two years I’ve done a long distance motorcycle ride in support of them, and attached to it a fundraising effort, run through the give-a-little website.

This year, our third such event is kicking off tomorrow at 3:30am in Warkworth. We’ll be riding around most of the North Island (south of Auckland), and covering more than 1,609 km (1,000 miles) within 24 hours. This year, I’ll be taking Stella, my lovely wife on the back of the bike, and our good friend Luke Mitchell will be joining our ride too, on his first 1600+km ride.

We’ve been fundraising for a while now, and we’re really proud to have already raised ~$1/km, but there’s no upper limit on how much we would like to raise for these guys. If you’re interested in reading more about our ride, the prep for it, the route, and also find out about how you can donate, then please feel free to visit my website: https://www.wiltshire.net/ss1600-2019

Thanks, all the best, and wish us good luck and decent weather for our ride, tomorrow the shortest day of the year!…

Chris.

Ahuroa Hall & School Fundraising Trek! February 23rd and 24th

Happy Holidays Everyone!

The Ahuroa Community Hall and School are planning to run another horse trek over the fabulous Ahuroa Hills on February 23rd and 24th 2019.

We will trek over a number of beautiful Ahuroa farms with hills and bush and magnificent views that go for miles. We provide portable toilets, parking, overnight camping and horse grazing. Whole weekend or one day options available. It’s a wonderful way to get out and see our beautiful country, meet new people or reconnect with friends. We will meet at 9am for registration checks on both days and ride off afterwards.

On Saturday we provide a delicious catered lunch, plus a BBQ and spit for Dinner. On Sunday we provide a wonderful cooked breakfast and a lunch. All this provided by the wonderful families of Ahuroa.

All this for the reasonable price of $200 for the weekend ($120 for Saturday only/$80 for Sunday only). Kids under 16 years $100 for both days ($60 for saturday only/$40 Sunday only) and must be accompanied by an adult paying rider.

This was a great success last year for fundraising, for the riders and for those running the trek. So come and join in the fun, either as a rider or helping to organise it – the more we have to help the merrier!

For registrations or questions please email Joanna Bullock on [email protected] or call 021 116 7251. Christine Bullock is also available for questions on 027 514 9696 or 09 422 5598. Feel free to pass on the advert to riders outside of Ahuroa.

From the Ahuroa Hall Advisory Committee and School

2018 long distance motorcycle riding and fundraiser for Aran Animal Rescue.

Our 2017 fundraising efforts were successful, the bike prep, fundraising, and 1600+km ride all went very well. It was a lot of fun. I seriously enjoyed what Jon and I achieved, so much so that we decided we’d do something similar in 2018.

Donate via Givealittle

In August 2017, there was the NI1600 (North Island 1600), which I had wanted to do, but it clashed with a trip to Rarotonga; the weather ended up being horrid too, so I wasn’t honestly bothered that I had to miss it. The next major event on the NZ Long Distance calendar is the TT2000, a 2000km in 48 hours event. It’s across both islands with start and finish options in both Ashhurst (North Island, near Palmerston North), and Christchurch (South Island). This is somewhat different from many other events in that it’s a rally, with points to collect from pre-specified checkpoints. All other  aspects of route planning are placed upon us, we have two whole days to complete the 2000kms required to be considered a finisher.

There are no prizes etc; it’s all for bragging rights. It’s held over the weekend, starting on Friday 23rd February.

As with all best made plans, work can get in the way. Unfortunately Jon has an existing work commitment on that day, so if I were to do this and not be alone, I needed to find another willing person to ride with.

Thankfully, Nigel Reardon expressed a degree of interest in last year’s ride, so I’ve asked him and he’s willing (if not entirely keen).


In planning this, we’ve considered several ride options and routes – we’re keen to attempt to combine the TT2000, with a couple of potential Iron Butt Association based riding certificates; another Saddle Sore (1600km), and perhaps a Bun Burner (the next level up from a SS – 1500 miles in 36 hrs ~2,414km).

So while the TT allows 48 hours to complete 2000km, we would be aiming to insert a longer ride, in a shorter time within the TT2000.

Our primary aim would be to finish the TT2000, with a secondary aim to complete a SS1600K within it, and possibly the BB1500. As with all LD ride planning the sensible thing to do is to plan it well, with properly established exit options and evaluation points etc; So, that’s what we’re currently doing.

Along side of this, one of the best motivational elements of last years ride was the $2000+ which we were able to help to fundraise for Aran Animal Rescue, which we hope to be able to repeat this next year. We set of goal of $1 per km across our 1600km last year, and we’re continuing with $1 per km this year, but across the planned 2,414km. Our goal is therefore set at $2,414 for Aran this year.

We were lucky enough last year to have a good number of followers watching our progress along the route using rider tracking and the Raah.co website – which we’ll be doing again this year. Our sponsorship page (paid directly through to Aran) is here: https://givealittle.co.nz/fundraiser/bun-burner-for-aran-animal-rescue – At the time of writing this I’ve yet to get my first sponsor, so if you’re feeling supportive, please feel free to jump in there and become my #1 donor for 2018! 🙂

I’ll use my website: http://www.wiltshire.net for updates on our riding efforts this year, you can subscribe to my wordpress blog (if you have a wordpress.com account), or keep an eye out on facebook, they will be cross-posted through my FB profile too.

Thanks for reading and taking an interest, send me a comment or questions. 🙂

Chris. – [email protected]