REMEMBERING - 12 months ago

On 11th November, 12 months ago, we were just commencing the Ride to Fly Journey and departed Cape Reinga that day - 11 November 2009.

How quickly time goes by.

We had been asked to participate in the MAF Queensland Discovery Day event which was to take place on 11 September 2010. With this in mind, we planned a visit to Cairns and Brisbane in June this year, to catch a bit of sun and to connect with MAF Head Office. While in Cairns, we drove up to see the Mareeba airport where MAF operations centre is located. Unfortunately, while we were in Cairns, there was a death in our family in NZ and it required that we return home urgently. Therefore, we were unable to continue with our visit to Brisbane, which included meeting up with MAF Queensland representatives to discuss our involvement in this event.

In July/August we were advised by Queensland MAF that, owing to circumstances, they were not able to proceed with their Ride2Fly 2010 as originally planned, but were downsizing the event for this year and hence our attendance was not required.

You can check the website http://www.maf.org.au/ - see Ride2Fly for photos of their September event.

Also see http://www.maf.org.nz/ for the latest news and final update on the NZ 2009 Ride to Fly

Donations continued to come in some 6 - 8 weeks after the NZ event finished and in total reached just over the NZD52,000.00.

We continue to thank God for all the happenings of the DOT and the New Guinea connections through the Ride to Fly event. We are still amazed at the way He continues to bring together new contacts.

DOT is still looking good - "all dressed up and nowhere to go".

Any suggestions?

DON'T FORGET TO BUY THE 'LATITUDE SIX COFFEE'.
10% of sales go towards community projects benefitting the coffee growers in PNG.
New distributors for this coffee with contact details as below:

Marketplacers International Limited
Phone (09) 9 526 6363
Email: sales@marketplacers.co.nz or order on line http://www.latitudesix.org.nz/
Attn: Anne Sheddan


PS - Good Keen Motorcyclists - Check out
Deus Ex Machina, Custom motorcycles, coffee, cafe, clothes
Shed 5, Upper Deck, 90 Wellesley St, Auckland
Good food and atmosphere!

God Bless you all. Frank

RIDE TO FLY - 23 April 2010

On the road. "Do you know the way to .........." Which way did you say?
4 gray heads, so much wisdom!

"Doubtless" this was the right way to go - Doubtless Bay seafood heaven. Thanks for a great night and a great response.


Helene Conway from Shine TV, filmed much of the northern part of the journey. Here is Frank, Helene and her husband Dean, with Mike Romkes (Christian Motorcycle Association) in Tauranga. We are so grateful to Anthony Wright fom Drury Tires (and The Redeemed motorcycle group) for the donations raised as a result of this leg of the journey. It was quite a sight to see approx. 80 bikes following the little DOT on the highway.

Two DOTS meet. Dennis Turnbull of Turnbull's Furniture in Palmerston North, who also owns the same model DOT.



Made it to Parliament, but they wouldn't let us in. The Security guard on his way to put an end to our hopes of directing the political scene.
Sorry Richard Seddon...... we didn't mean to disturb you!

And on and on and on we go... Christchurch all in the Countdown mode.



Mosgiel airport. A similar photo with write up, made the Otago Daily Times front page. This was picked up by the New Guinea "National" newspaper which then did a 3-page feature in their "Weekender" with a view to raising awareness of the need for another plane in PNG.

Nearly there. Invercargill with blue sky for a few minutes. Over 7,000 bikes were in the area for the Burt Munro Challenge weekend.


Next stop Teretonga Racing and Andrew Stroud (NZ Superbike Champion), who continues his winning ways in 2010. Thanks Andrew, for your support and encouragement.

Peter Hansen, the man who found the bike in pieces in Tari, PNG, crated it up and shipped it to NZ in 1978, where it sat untouched for many years.

"The Icing on the Cake"
Original 1965, pre-independence, Territory of Papua New Guinea, registration number plate. This was presented to Frank by Peter Hansen. Peter (a pilot in PNG) had brought the dissasembled bike, in crates, from PNG to NZ in 1978. He had kept the number plate as a memento when he sold the bike, until he met Frank in Blenheim on completion of the 'Ride to Fly' in 2009.

Inspection after the Ride, showed evidence of the engine having 'seized' a number of times during the Ride which should have prevented the bike completing the 2,200 kms journey. But it made the distance. (God's provision!)



"What's it all about". The eagerly awaited 'life-line' for many people and situations.

GA8 AirVan. (P2-MFL is the PNG registration for the NEW GA8 AirVan)

Logo for the NZ "Ride to Fly, November 2009



Here is the suggested change of logo with colours to be representative of the colour scheme of the current MAF aircraft.

NOW WHAT?

11th September 2010, is "Discovery Day" for MAF Queensland. Frank has been asked to present the DOT story. At this stage, it is planned for us both to attend this event and it would be great to take DOT with us! We are still working on that possibility.

RIDE TO FLY - 23 April 2010

It is now nearly 6 months since our journey from Cape Reinga to Bluff began. Little did we know some of the hiccups ahead of us, but neither did we know the great things that we would witness. First of all, we want to thank you each one for the part you played. Without your support and promotion, the Ride would never have taken place.

In a letter from MAF Asia Pacific, the Executive Officer, Vaughan Woodward, writes :
The MAF New Zealand contribution of NZ$49,079.58 in 2010 toward the purchase of a turbo-charged GA8, is valued and much appreciated.

Following fundraising, manufacture and delivery, the aircraft was deployed to Wewak on the northern coast of Papua New Guinea in October 2009. In the last two months of 2009, the MAF New Zealand funded aircraft, P2-MFL, made a significant contribution in the delivery of aid and development capacity, flying a total of 9.5% of the Wewak base total work.
(P2-MFL is the PNG registration for the new GA8 AirVan).

The aircraft is used to fly from the coastal township into the mountainous interior of PNG providing many remote communities with access to the essentials of life. Here, the turbo-charged engine delivers the performance necessary for operations into short airstrips at high altitude.

During the two months of its operational flying in 2009 the MAF New Zealand funded aircraft has:

• Flown 11 patients and their carers on emergency medical evacuation flights
• Flown 167 hours over 278 flights, the majority of which were visits to remote communities (averaging over 5 flights per day)
• Carried over 490 passengers in and out of remote communities facilitating both government services and business development
• Carried nearly 9,100 kgs of freight (such as food, building materials, medical and educational supplies) to remote communities
• Moved over 30 teachers and education workers (and their families)
• Transported 6 health care workers and 383 kg of health care materials

Since this transfer was made some weeks ago, further donations for the Ride to Fly event, have come in, bringing the latest total in excess of $50,000.

Further presentations have been made at St Peter's Anglican Church, Katikati, Greenwood Park Retirement Village Tauranga, with plans for another at Omokoroa Baptist (2nd May), and The Orchard - Te Puke (June/July).

Following on from these, MAF in Queensland, have requested that we attend a “Ride To Fly” event which they are promoting in Brisbane, on 11th September. This is to be a Discovery Day for folk interested in MAF generally, or for those with a view to serving with MAF. Frank has been asked for a presentation at the end of the ride, telling the story of the DOT and to encourage those who are interested in flying and support services.

If possible, they would like to have the DOT bike there to take part, but this will depend on costs. For this event MAF Queensland have asked to use the Ride To Fly logo with a change of colours, from the old Yellow and Black, to Red and Blue which would then be in line with the current MAF colours. We have agreed to this and MAF NZ will now Trade Mark this logo.

RIDE TO FLY - 07 December 2009

We are home again! After 4,598 kilometres, it is good to be back in our own surroundings. We are sorting through photos and will have some for you to see shortly along with stories. What a journey and so many people to thank. So watch this space.

Ride to Fly - Update Tuesday 1st December 2009

Here we are in Picton. We had a good but long trip from Christchurch and were able to visit the Omaka Aviation Heritage Museum. We have other interesting things to tell you, but will leave them until we get back to "civilisation" and get a good night's sleep or two.

A text message received from Helene - Shine TV.
"You are on Shine TV news again this Thursday at 8.30 pm"

You might like to check this out. Please let your friends and family know too. Thanks.

Ride to Fly update - 30 November 2009

Monday night, 30th November 2009 - In Christchurch
A very long drive and again enjoying great hospitality for the night.
Here are the photos we lost last night.

WE MADE IT !!
Left to Right:
Emma McGeorge (MAF Auckland office), Frank and Ruth Carter, Ruth and Jim Mc Bride,
Peter Carter, Noel Stevens, Mark Fox (CEO MAF), Geoff Given

Alongside the Signposts, there is a rock with inscriptions as follows:

Monday 30th November 2009

This morning we left Invercargill. The weather is better, however still pretty cold with a high of 12 degrees. We heard there may be snow on the Canterbury foothills! We are heading for Christchurch where we will stay for the night and hopefully update the blog with some more photos. We hear there is better weather up North so that is where we are heading!

At this stage, we plan to be back in Tauranga late Wednesday afternoon. Once we are up and running there we will send an email out to everyone and update you all on everything to date.

A huge thanks again to everyone for their generosity, hospitality and support since we embarked on our journey on the 10th of November, which now seems like a lifetime ago!

Ride to Fly - update 29 November 2009

We made it! On Friday 27th November 2009, just after 11.00 am, we arrived in style at the Bluff signpost.

We were escorted by 3 or 4 other motorbikes from Invercargill and on arrival, there were a number of other bikes already there - albeit not to greet us particularly. There are an estimated 7000 bikes in the area this weekend coming and going, so it is not surprising that some were at Bluff.

By the time we had left Invercargill, we were in driving rain and wind coming off the Antarctic apparently. However, we managed to stand upright long enough to take a group photo as follows. (Unfortunately at the time of writing this blog we lost our internet connection so were not able to upload the group photo. We will endeavour to do this shortly.)



Even admist the terrible weather, we were interviewed by both Southern Cue TV and Shine TV, both of which were great interviews - thanks again to Southern Cue TV and Shine TV for their interest and support.

The Burt Munro Challenge was great, including the beach racing! We have had the DOT on display throughout the weekend at the Challenge and there has been tremendous interest. We have also managed to continue to distribute our flyers and have continued on with the donation buckets!

Andrew Stroud spent the day on Friday at the E Hayes shop signing autographs and he asked Frank to join him and they had a great day together.