Driving miles for smiles

Described as a drive in the bush with your mates, the first “bash” was organised by businessman, explorer and philanthropist Dick Smith, and travelled from Bourke to Burketown in Queensland to raise $250,000 for Variety.

Last year nationally Variety helped 90,000 children with grants worth $9.7 million.

For the past 15 “bashes” Moree’s Lee Estens has also joined in the madcap fun.

Each year Lee is joined by a couple of mates, and this year her co-pilots will be Moree resident Sarah Young – on her fifth “bash” – and Lee’s cousin Lyndy Regan, Coonamble, who has been on one and half bashes before.

The Moree team will be driving Lee’s trusty 1972 Mercedes Benz, and taking part in the longest “bash” yet – a two-stage event which initially runs from Sydney to Bunbury in Western Australia, and then onto Broome.

This will be the longest bash Lee has taken part in, covering 8399 kilometres in total.

Lee said the first bash would take 10 days to drive across the country to Bunbury, then further six-day adventure from Bunbury to Broome, with “spectacular outback and beautiful colours of the ocean”.

“We get a day off before the second trip which is optional, but because we have driven from Moree to Sydney before we start the trip we’ll have done more than 9000km,” Lee said.

Completing the bash alongside 321 other people in 102 cars, Lee said the trip was “incredibly exciting” as they would be driving across the Nullarbor Plain.

Lee said having done more than 100,000kms worth of bashing in the past 15 years, she replaced her first car in 2007 after “wearing the first one out”.

The second car is still going strong – the Grand Champion Show Car, which features a giant red, blue and white ribbon across the body of the car.

“As we’re all rural women from Moree, we want to highlight regional Australia and to make people aware of where their food comes from,” Lee said.

“The car has Moree as the number plates and every day people tell us stories about Moree, so it’s important to us and makes us proud of where we are from.”

In the 15 years Lee has been taking part in the Variety Bash she and her teams have raised about $1 million.

“I’ve had 17 friends through the years come with me, all of which have been associated with Moree, except for one who came from Warren,” Lee said.

“This year we’re hoping to have raised about $70,000.”

As a community event, Lee said hundreds of people joined in to work towards the common goal of raising money for the charity and bringing business to local towns along the route.

“The bash brings joy to towns large and small along the way,” she said.

“The bash brings about $70,000 to one town over night, with the cost of food to cater for the more than 300 people involved with the event, accommodation and petrol.”

In recognition of the Children’s Charity, Lee said she first decided to join the bash after her son was diagnosed with Leukaemia in 1984.

“Stuart Telfer (motoring events manager for Variety, St Leonards), a former basher of 15 years was the first person to encourage me to go bashing, to get ahead and join up,” she said.

“Now we drive the miles for the smiles.”