17 March 2005

Real Estate Principals Cycle Through the Night for Tsunami Victims

Most realtors attending the Professionals Real Estate Annual Conference in Rotorua today (Wednesday 16 March) will be arriving by plane, train or automobile. Real Estate Principals Colin Claxton from Manurewa and Havard Daniels from Albany, arrived on bicycle.

They set off at 9.30pm last night (Tuesday 15 March) from outside Colin’s Manurewa ‘Professionals’ Real Estate office, and have biked through the night 300km to arrive at the conference at 11 am this morning, raising $10,000 in sponsorship money for World Vision’s tsunami appeal.

With every turn of the pedal, as he cycles through the night, Colin says he’ll be thinking of the victims of the Boxing Day tsunami in Asia. His own discomfort, he reckons, will be nothing compared to what they have experienced.

Every kilometre we cycle will represent to me a thousand people who died in that tragedy. That’s a symbol for me to focus on as I pedal through the night.

Colin is grateful to have the company and support of Havard Daniels, who has just completed the Taupo Ironman contest in under 13 hours.

He’s much more experienced at these endurance events than I am, and although I’ve clocked up a couple of thousand kilometres in training, with a resultant 10kg weight loss, this will be a big stretch for me. I’m relying on Howard’s experience to get us both through.

The cycling realtors could have gone the short way to Rotorua, only 200kms, but they headed out through Clevedon, Kawakawa Bay, Kopu, Paeroa, Waihi, Tauranga and Te Puke to Rotorua, which gives them a journey of 300km.

They travelled with a support vehicle, driven by Colin’s wife, Denise.

ENDS

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