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Welcome to Afritrex - A privately funded charity endurance challenge of marathons, mountains and more; documenting the encounters, obstacles and achievements of 12 months of hard fundraising and charity work across Africa.

Whilst circumnavigating the African Continent I will complete the following challenges:

To complete five marathons of at least 26 miles
To climb five of the highest mountains in Africa
To visit as many of the sites across Africa where the Victoria Cross has been won as possible (VC180 Challenge)

"The challenge to make every penny count"

Have a closer look at the site and find out more about how we'll be spending 2008.

Keep up to date !! - The action is happening as we speak...

Click here for the latest diary entry

Click here for the latest photos

Click here for the latest route

My name is Ben Southall and for the last decade I’ve travelled extensively throughout Southern Africa taking on projects and expeditions to test my abilities and discover exciting new areas of the African continent, whilst in the UK I take part in fitness and endurance events to raise money for charity and thought it was about time I combined the two fields to create my own fundraising expedition from with others could benefit.

So was born Afritrex: the logistical equivalent of one man trying to build spaghetti junction using Taiwanese instructions and a broken shovel.

The idea was simple: take one continent; attempt to circumnavigate it and whilst doing so try and stay fit enough to complete a number of endurance challenges to raise money for my chosen charities and whilst doing so post it all on the internet!

This is set to be the most challenging, exciting and exhausting year of my life, can I really do it?

"The answer is I don't know,

so why not find out!"

This is me Ben Southall and this is my mission throughout 2008. Stay in contact with my progress updates on how things are going through this site.

I’ll be keeping you informed of my progress through biweekly updates to the site, route information and with regular photo and video blogs.

LOGISTICS AND PLANNING.....

The next six weeks are cruical to the success of this fundraising expedition, there are three of the ten challenges to take on, nearly 5,000kms to cover and a multitude of countriesto pass through in order to make it all happen.

Mt Stanley in Uganda is the first of them and one of the most challenging, to reach the base of the mountain involves a three day hike through rainforest and marshland. During the dry season this is still one of the wettest places on the continent so my mettle will be tested to its full again as I battle with a 10 day hike.

From here I have to get to Mt Kilimajaro for October 4th to meet a friend from the UK who is coming out to meet me to share the experience of climbing to the highest point on the African continent, which should take around seven days.

A swift drive down the coast to meet my parents for the first time in eight months and then its a two day drive to climb back up in altitude to Nairobi to complete the fourth marathon in the city!!

This is what it was all about, its challenging, testing and 100% enjoyable too. Afritrex is alive and well.

Ben