Newcastle

The hat belonged to an Irishman called James Teer.

He came from Newcastle, County Down.

And he, at the age of 18, in 1845, just as the famine, potato famine was kicking in, decided to leave Ireland and seek his fortune in Australia and New Zealand.

And he spent about 18 to 20 years mining in Australia, arrived sometime in New Zealand in about 1863, 64, just in time for the Hokitika Rush or West Coast Gold Rush.

I did eat a lot of ice cream.

We holidayed in Newcastle, County Down.

Wow.

Not

Tyneside, no? No, no, Newcastle County down, Mountains of Mourne and all that.

Bit of breeze down there, which is always nice.

And the best ice cream, the Broadway.

...

when Rory Best, uh, approached us, and with what seemed like a mad idea at the time to walk from Newcastle, County Down, which is the site of our existing Daisy Lodge, which is a therapeutic short break center, um, with Cancer Fund for Children that serves, uh, families and children and young people zero to 24 and their families who are impacted by cancer.

Mm-hmm.

So he, he walked that journey, 290 kilometers, and raised over 1 million euro in 2021.

So, um, Cancer Fund for Children, we're a charity that, as I said earlier, um, we provide services for children and young people from zero to 24, along with their families, um, impacted by cancer, and we work all over the Ireland, island of Ireland.

So we're in all 32 counties, and one big part of what we do is we provide, uh, free therapeutic short breaks in our purpose-built short break centers, Daisy Lodge.

So we have Daisy Lodge in Newcastle County Down, set there at the foot of the Mourne Mountains.

It's been in existence for over 10 years, and in, way back in kind of around that 2021 time when Rory took on his first challenge, um, it was kind of decided that we, w- we needed another Daisy Lodge.