On Saturday, 23 riders and eight support crew depart Lyndoch, in the Barossa Valley, for Swans Reach and then across to Tamworth where the ride finishes on Friday, March 26.

All in all, somewhere between 1700 and 1800kms, so ride organiser Barry Walton tells me.

He’s been organising the ride for 18 months, a major charity ride to celebrate the 10th year of the chopper service being based in Tamworth.

About $30,000 had been raised before the ride started.

And the local publicans have been only too happy to support the venture, through the AHA as well as a sponsorship of this reporter.

Early on, the AHA donated $2500 to the ride with the thought a number of their members might ride the final day’s leg from Quirindi to

Tamworth.

Then Craig Power, licensee at the Family Hotel, and part of family business The Pub Group – which owns and runs The Pub, the SouthGate Inn, the Family Hotel and the Good Companions Hotel – organised a few of his colleagues – Simon Rasmussen (Courthouse Hotel), Garry Burgess (Central Hotel), Ron Hammond (Tudor Hotel), Matt Zell (Imperial Hotel) and Chris Wynne (Longyard Hotel) – as well as Tooheys and Carlton to sponsor my ride for $1400.

It was a a generous donation by them.

Rasmussen had a good excuse not to ride the final leg.

“I’ve got spinal surgery coming up,” he said.

“But we don’t mind sponsoring the helicopter – we do a fair bit for them during the year and over Country Music.”

Burgess said he hadn’t been training at all but loves helping out the helicopter, especially on its charity golf days.

I can vouch for that too with many a post-game celebration at the Central Hotel.

Zell reckoned his “ugly dial” didn’t need to be in The Leader but, like Hammond at the Tudor and Wynne at the Longyard, is a chopper fan as well as sponsoring numerous sporting clubs.