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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.

VC180 UPDATE

Whilst travelling for the last six months down the west coast of Africa I have only been able to visit 4 of the 180 VC sites which makes up the other side of this fundraising expedition; The VC180 Challenge. This is in no way because of my inability to get to them….more the fact that there are only that many!

The second half of the trip, which really kicks off at the end of July, sees the remainder of the sites all within grasp and so the total will quickly rise to somewhere around the 180 I intend getting to.

Since setting off on the expedition the situation with some of the countries I will need to get to has changed, generally for the worse. Zimbabwe happily grabs the headlines and with it the chance of getting to the sites within Harare, formally Salisbury, diminish but from speaking to other travellers and Overlanders the opportunity to visit the country, and with it the sites, remains as long as you can be totally self-sufficient for fuel and food, something which I certainly don’t have a problem with…..so watch this space, I think I’m heading that way after Mozambique!

The four sites which I’ve been through are in Gambia, Nigeria (as close as I could get to without causing myself big problems), Namibia and South Africa – transiting through to get to Durban in time for the Comrades. I will spend the next month visiting sites along the coast and then turn inland towards to majority of South Africa’s sites located around the area of Rourke’s Drift, from there I’ll head up to the capital Joburg to collect my buddy Rachel from the airport and then towards Mozambique and Zimbabwe where the next splattering of sites occurs.

By the time I arrive at the north coast of Africa towards the end of the year I will then have left remaining the sites of Egypt, Libya and Tunisia…..easy then!!

Ben - Afritrex

Posted on 04 Jul 2008 by Ben Southall

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