A TRIO of Limerick bikers who completed a 16,000-mile journey from Limerick to Mongolia on motorbikes have raised €11,000 for the Mid West School for Hearing Impaired Children in Rosbrien.
Brothers Kevin and Aran Power and their brother-in-law Stephen Allen began their 40-day journey on July 18, and received a heroes’ welcome from pupils when they touched down at Shannon Airport on Friday, August 29.
The three travelled through a total of 21 countries on their trusty Honda 125cc bikes, without any support vehicles.
Stephen’s sister Maria Allen, principal of the School for Hearing Impaired Children, told the Limerick Post: “It’s incredible; we thought that to get about one or two thousand would be amazing but we’re at €11,000 now and it’s still coming in.
“The money will all go towards our preschool. The school is funded by the Department of Education, but the preschool isn’t. At this stage we have enough money to keep the preschool open until the end of the year. This injection of cash means everything.”
Aran Power said the three had faced a number of obstacles during their trip, and on one occasion thought they might never reach the finish line.
“When we were about 1,600 kilometres from the finish and we thought we were home and dry, one of the wheels fell off one of the bikes. We had no way of fixing it; we were in the complete wilderness,” he explained.
“We were devastated; we thought the bike was finished and that we wouldn’t be able to go any further. We ended up walking along the dirt road for about four hours looking for the wheel nut and we eventually found it. It was the best feeling in the world.”
Aran revealed that getting to see the ‘Door to Hell’, a natural gas fire in the Karakoum Desert in Turkmenistan that has been burning since 1971, was another highlight of the trip.
He added that the local people the trio encountered on their journey helped them with countless punctures and repairs along the way, and even provided food and accommodation free of charge in some cases.
“We were a bit concerned going into countries like Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan – which is a dictatorship – and Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, but everyone there was so helpful,” said Aran.
“In Uzbekistan we couldn’t get petrol or diesel. We were running very low, so we pulled into a hotel to see if they could help us. There was a wedding on, and when they saw the three bikes and saw that we were Westerners they brought us into the wedding and put vodka and food in front of us then got us petrol.”
