On 10 August, Dr Nick Cole will co-lead a team in an attempt to break a distance world record by kitesurfing along the Great Barrier Reef to raise awareness and funding for the Macquarie University Motor Neurone Disease Research Centre, Australia’s first and largest research centre dedicated to the disease.

The event, ‘Kite The Reef’, is a 1000km journey that will take approximately 10 days and require seven hours of gruelling continuous physical activity each day.

Dr Cole, Research Group Leader at the MND Research Centre, is making the trip alongside 10 other kitesurfers and eight support crew, all united in this fundraising effort.

“As part of the collaborative team working in the MND Research Centre with Dr Dominic Rowe’s clinic upstairs, we see many patients first-hand and know how utterly devastating this diagnosis is for them and their families,” Dr Cole said. “Kite The Reef will be hugely demanding on the team – equivalent to several marathons each day with constantly changing physical and logistical problems to solve – but it is nothing compared to the journey that MND patients have to face. That’s what motivated us to create this event and what will drive us all to achieve it.”

Did you know?
MND does not discriminate based on age, sex or socioeconomic background. Anyone can be affected, and currently there is no cure or effective treatment. The research teams at the MND Research Centre hope to change this.

The average life expectancy following an MND diagnosis is 27 months (820 days), which is the current number of kilometres (823) that the team needs to beat for the kite surfing distance world record.

More information and how to get involved
Visit the Kite The Reef website to learn more. Every dollar raised will go directly to the Macquarie University Motor Neurone Disease Research Centre.

Follow the team and their epic journey on Facebook.