Conquer the Southern Alps with the Scooter Safari

On Saturday May 19th, 250 participants of the Tranz Alpine Scooter Safari will attempt to conquer the Southern Alps riding 250 gruelling kilometres Coast-to-Coast from Christchurch to Hokitika on 50cc scooters to raise funds for the New Zealand Cancer Society. You won’t want to miss this!

Registrations sold out in just 4 days and we are well underway fundraising with over $135,000 donated thus far. This year will be a big one for us, if we can raise our target amount of $211K it will bring the event total over 6 rides to 1-Million dollars raised for Cancer research, education and support. With your help I reckon we’ll get there!

From Humble Beginnings: Started in 2009, the Scooter Safari was created by my husband and I in support of our young friend diagnosed with Bowel Cancer. We’re no professional event management company, just your average Kiwi Mum and Dad organising this in our spare time to try make a difference It started small with the idea snowballing into what is now a massive biennial event. It's not a race or for the faint hearted - it is designed to be the coldest, longest, hardest, most gruelling and uncomfortable test of endurance on a city scooter to raise money and awareness for cancer sufferers.

From Far and Wide: Interestingly, of this years 250 registered riders, half of them are new to the event having never ridden in the Scooter Safari before. It’s great to see that interest in the event is still growing. Riders come from all over NZ and even off shore to take part.

The Route: The ride starts 9am at the Mike Pero Motorsport Park with several laps around the track before setting off towards the Alps on State Highway 73 to Hokitika. First stop is for morning tea at the Sheffield Pie Shop before we head up the mighty Porters Pass to Lake Lyndon. Then it’s onto Arthur's Pass for lunch and down the treacherous Otira Viaduct to the last regroup at the Kumara Racecourse before heading into Hokitika to finish up outside the Beachfront Hotel around 4:45pm.

You can view the maps and timetable on our website along with all the additional information under the “PARTICIPATE” tab. The ride goes ahead in any weather so long as as the road remains open.

They’re all Crazy: Our riders have a habit of dressing up - we’ll have clowns, superheroes, storm troopers and who knows what else. It really is worth spectating if not taking part. There’s a great selection of photos from previous rides on our website which your are welcome to use.

We’re making money: The realtime fundraising total and leaderboard can be viewed at http://www.scootersafari.co.nz/leaderboard.html You’ll see from this, if you click through to the riders individual fundraising pages or check our our Facebook Page and Chat Group we have some interesting characters taking part and for a whole raft of reasons. There’s plenty of great stories in this event!

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