What started off as a slightly bizarre idea between a few members of the Half Moon Bay Rotary Club in 2015 has turned into the main annual fundraiser.
Buy an old car and drive it through to Bluff from Auckland on “roads less travelled” or secondary roads. Why? Well, it's better than working! So that’s what the few did. They had a ball and saw parts of the country they had not seen before.
It was acknowledged that they were onto something good, so a website was set up, and the Bangers to Bluff became an official thing.
2021 is the sixth official year of Bangers to Bluff, after it was postponed in 2020 due to Covid-19 restrictions.
For 2021 a spending limit of $2000 applies for each car, but some participants are lucky enough to receive "donated" vehicles. The cars also have to be registered and warranted.
Unsurprisingly, some of the bangers need TLC like an oil change, brakes, new tyre/s, wheel balance or even a new battery.
Money is raised through the car registrations, sponsorship, donations and selling of the cars at auction in Invercargill.
For 2021, the route heads down to Rotorua via Pyes Pa (Tauranga), Chateau Tongariro, Palmerston North (via Pipiriki & Jerusalem), over to Blenheim, Westport, Greymouth, Haast, Wanaka (via Jackson Bay), Te Anau and on to Stirling Point Bluff and back to Invercargill.
Along the way, drivers will meet with local MS local branches for a little hospitality & fellowship.
Our masthead charities for 2021 are MSNZ (Multiple Sclerosis) and Hopeworks NZ (A brain injury trauma trust) plus charitable work within Rotary. Bangers has become a way to raise money for these deserving charities, to travel through parts of New Zealand you would not see every day, meeting really good people around NZ and having a hell of a lot of fun doing it – and supporting our businesses hit by Covid-19.
If you want to donate, click here.