The Variety Bash diaries: Day Three

The boys (and girl) from Bulls and the What a Load of Bull team, team captain Lyndon second from right.

Day two of the Variety Trillian Bash, and the teams lined up to leave Ohakea Air Base in blazing sunshine for an impromptu fire-engine water battle, before the short drive to Clifton School, Bulls.

Local Mayor Andy Watson had paid $200 to Variety - The Children's Charity to go up the Fishpot fire tender's 30-metre ladder, but he got more than he bargained for when Auckland's Friends On A Mission team foamed him before he descended.

Seven-year-old Ella had arrived from Palmerston North to collect a grant for private swimming lessons, as autism makes public classes too stressful, and she watched wide-eyed as Peter Drummond controlled the ladder's descent, before accepting her cheque from actor Mark Wright, and local Bash stalwart Lyndon Tamblyn - a foundation pupil of this school.

Ella with a grant for private swimming lessons - she's autistic and the public pool is too noisy.

The Herald hopped aboard Lyndon's What a Load of Bull Land Rover, covered in 150kg of leather panels and topped by two metal bulls, to head up the Whangaehu Valley and then the Whanganui River Road. The car is packed to the gunwales with giveaways, and we wedged among 30kg of Carousel confectionary, Coopers Tyres caps and Farmlands drink bottles and pens - the first shipment of several the team will collect round the country to give away to kids along the route.

There's also the bull suits the team wears during school visits. Lyndon helms the What a Load of Bull brand of sauces and deli meats based in Bulls, "We were Wholesale-a-bull, now we're retail-a-bull too," he puns, as we pull up at a farm gate to dispense lollies to kids gathered at the end of a long gravel drive, 100km from the nearest town.

Time to hop teams, and it's a ladder job to get into the Argus fire tender, a 1988 Mitsubishi with 1800-litre water tanks, and what could be the best in-cabin sound system we've ever heard. The Argus crew will change along the way, but today there's Trevor, Tre and Mike from Auckland, Rotorua's Andrew and Zane and Ethan from Hamilton - others will join from Wellington and Christchurch.

Andre, Mike and Trevor with the Argus Fire Truck stop to take a break on the Whanganui River Road and to make a small boy's day.

Trevor, freshly arrived with his family from South Africa, has two young children of his own and says that like the rest of the crew, he wants to give back to others when he can.

We stop too, for a small boy by the side of this lonely road, a bit nervous of this mighty engine - but happy to accept a bag of goodies.

Tonight, it's Ohakune - tomorrow, Waiouru from 8.30-9.30 for the first grants, Kimbolton for lunch at 11-12.15 and on to Wellington, stopping at a series of schools along the way.