A short film has documented a determined father’s last adventure with his daughter: a bike ride around Central’s Lake Dunstan Trail.

Four years ago, former cyclist and charismatic go-getter Eddie was diagnosed with Multiple System Atrophy, a terminal neurodegenerative disorder that has taken his voice, mobility and quality of life. 

Not ready to give in to the disease, Eddie suggested he and his daughter Keely prepare for their greatest adventure together, a bike ride around the Lake Dunstan trail.

“For a while there you forget you have a disease,” Eddie said of the adventure.

The ambitious plan pushed them to physical and emotional limits, which Keely documents in ‘Fast Eddie’, a Loading Docs production.

Keely is a writer and director from Auckland, who won the Creative New Zealand Emerging Talent Award at Whānau Mārama, New Zealand International Film Festival and the Audience Choice Award at Toronto’s ImagineNATIVE film festival for her debut short film (‘Nancy From Now On’). 

Loading Docs is an initiative funded by NZ on Air, with support from the New Zealand Film Commission and Te Māngai Pāho.

It funds, creates and distributes innovative New Zealand documentary shorts, with a mission “to give the best and brightest New Zealand filmmakers the chance to tell their stories with creativity, vision and passion and share them with the world”.

The three to 12 minute short documentaries are launched on the Loading Docs website and from there are syndicated locally and internationally, made freely available to view and share anywhere and everywhere.

Watch ‘Fast Eddie’ here.