Thunderbox

Meg and Siobhan, sisters, best friends & team Thunderbox, are so proud to be a part of an organisation that brings Australians together from all walks of life with one very specific goal: raising funds for cancer research, specifically for NHMRC – the National Health and Medical Research Council. 

In June 2025, we will be taking part in the Shitbox Rally – Winter – driving from Perth to Darwin via the Gibb River Road. This will be completed in our trusty 2003 Toyota Avalon, it will be Ava the Avalons 5th consecutive rally… will she make it this time?! Only time and a few river crossing will tell. 😉This year will be the 14th year for our family to be driving in the name of kicking cancer’s butt! The team originally started with our dad and his best mate, Kelvin, now it’s our turn to make a difference. 

Shitbox Rally is the largest community lead fundraiser for Cancer Council in Australia and is now in its 15th year. Our fundraising contributes to ground-breaking research projects that miss out on funding from government. We help keep some of the most cutting-edge ideas alive in our labs, to help so many families later and it’s something that we are incredibly honoured to be a part of. The research done by this organisation has helped our family directly, with the top three focus areas last year being leukemia & lymphoma, colorectal and pancreatic studies. 

All of this hard work and fundraising is done in the name of Shitbox Rallies where we partake is an offroad drive over 7 days, in burnt out, good for nothing, 2WDs valued at less than $1,500. We paint them up in ludicrous designs and camp where sometimes there isn’t even a town for us to pull into, but always a fuel bowser and a pub! We travel on some of Australia’s most formidable roads as a convoy of 250 cars, helping each other along when the inevitable happens…someone breaks down. Fortunately, someone has always got a footy ball or a cricket bat for the rest of us to pass the time whilst we try and fix the damage. The distance covered each day is dependent on the condition of the roads – bitumen, sand, gravel – but range between 350 to 600 km each day. You can only imagine the length of the fuel line if you arrive at camp last and there’s only one bowser…we do this for 7 days. 

Part of the participation is that all teams have to raise a minimum of $5,000 but most teams raise well above this amount as you can see with the Winter 2025 rally target set at $2,000,000 plus. In 2023, Meg shaved her head, saying goodbye to 26 inches of curly hair and allowing us to beat our all-time record total of $19,050. Shitbox Rally as a whole has donated over $49 million so Cancer Council since it started. 

We have social media so if you’d like to follow along on the antics of the rally in June next year, drop us a follow. 

Instagram & Facebook: Linktr.ee/teamthunderboxrally