Variety Trillian Bash Rolls up Its Sleeves at Waitaria Bay

Variety Trillian Bash Rolls up Its Sleeves at Waitaria Bay

Working bee at eight-pupil Marlborough Sounds School

The Variety Trillian Bash launched into a busy week of South Island school visits by rolling up its collective sleeves for a working bee at tiny Waitaria Bay School.

The remote Marlborough Sounds School has only eight pupils and a part-time caretaker. With parents already commuting some distance over farmland to take their kids to school, they struggle to keep the grounds maintained, and welcomed the arrival of the Variety Bashers on Monday morning.

The crews got stuck in installing insulation beneath the main building, mowing the rugby pitch, weeding, painting, moving the shade house, clearing sheds and building garden beds.

The kids were away on a school trip, and will certainly get a surprise when they turn up to school today, though several got a surprise of a different kind when they passed through Portage on their way home, and stopped off for a magic show put on by Australian magician Super Hubert, a Bash veteran who flies in each year to join the New Zealand event.

The day was a special one for Bashers, and not just because of the remoteness of the school or the beauty of the scenery, but because it marked TVOne newsman Simon Dallow’s 20th Bash, and he was presented with a certificate and the charity’s thanks by former Variety Internation president Peter Drummond, before leaving, to front TVOne’s news as usual on Tuesday.

Tuesday will see the Bash visit Linkwater School’s 40 kids at 9am, then Havelock School at 9.50, Canvastown School at 10.50, and Rai Valley School from 11.35, for lunch.

Then it’s onward via Hira School at 2pm before the vehicles line up on the Nelson foreshore, then spread out to shake buckets for Variety – The Chlldren’s Charity before parking up at Auckland Point School at 4pm.

On Wednesday they visit the kids at Auckland Point School until 9am, then visit Brightwater School at 9.20, Wakefield School at 10, and Murchison Area School at 12.10 before departing for Greymouth.

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