Challenges, Inspiration

Canadian couple become the oldest ever challengers to reach the Summit of Mt Kilimanjaro!

October 18, 2012

If you need proof that age does not define what you can and can’t do, look no further than the inspirational exploits of Canadians Esther (84) and Martin Kafer (85), who set the world record for the oldest ever couple to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest mountain!

Peak performers, Martin and Esther reached the summit of Kilimanjaro earlier this month, after a five-day trek, as part of the Ascent for Alzheimer’s fundraising initiative in support of the Alzheimer Society of BC, fundraising a reported CAD$310,000!

Esther and Martin have always had a very active lifestyle, having honeymooned in the Swiss Alps and made more than 30 first ascents of British Columbia peaks. They were motivated by Martin’s sister’s rapid decline into dementia to take on an extra special challenge. Continue Reading…

Tips & Advice

Top 5 tips for getting fit for your challenge!

October 16, 2012

Some of the questions we get asked most frequently at the Charity Challenge office are “how fit do I need to be to take on this challenge?” and “do you have any advice to help me with my fitness training?” These can be difficult questions for us to answer, as different people have different levels of fitness and varying physical conditions.

We do have a preparing for your challenge – fitness training page on our website which offers some great practical advice for your fitness training, so definitely check it out.

But we do understand that the best kind of advice you can get is from people who have been there, done that and have literally got the charity challenge T-shirt. So check out below for the top 5 tried and tested tips from our charity challengers on how to get fit and ready your charity challenge!

Mix it up – Getting fit isn’t just about going to the gym, the more interesting you can make it for yourself, the more likely you are to stick with it! Join a sports team, take up a new hobby or start power-walking to work.  Recent Kilimanjaro conqueror Hanna mixed up her regime by doing a bit of running, swimming and cycling. Previous Charity Challenger Ken Menconi made his time at the gym interesting by keeping it varied – “Before the trek I worked out 6 days/week combining spinning with overall body work out, treadmill, stairclimber and yoga (for balance and centering myself).” The more varied you can make your training, the more parts of your body gets a workout and the more prepared you are to meet whatever your challenge throws at you!

Train with your kit – One if the best ways you can prepare yourself for your charity challenge is by getting used to and training with your kit. Recent Etna Challenger Neil Berridge strongly recommends spending some time in your walking boots “I was able to walk to and from work and broke them in really well…Result for me was that I had no blisters during the trek.” Fellow Etna challenger Becki Lake also can’t recommend training with your kit enough, – “Training with the actual rucksack you will be using is a must! And training with the weight you will be carrying as well!” You can do lots of walking and trekking preparation, but if you don’t get yourself used to carrying the weight of your rucksack on your back it can be a real shock to you when you begin your challenge.

Focus on the leg muscles – whether you’re cycling, trekking or sledging, you are going to be really working your leg muscles on your charity challenge, so strengthening them up is a must! Hill-walking is a great way of working your leg muscles, building up your endurance and getting used to navigating uneven terrains, as Kilimanjaro trekker Phillip Brown testifies of hill trekking, “what better way to train for climbing a mountain!”

This principle works for Cyclists as well, as Great Wall challenge cyclist Chris Hibbins says, “get lots of big steep hills practice. I say if you can cycle most the cycle routes in the lakes you will be fine”. If you don’t have the time to disappear into the hillside, there are still lots of other things a little closer to home you can do to work up your leg muscles. If you work/live a couple of floors up, forgo the lift and start taking the stairs, get off a tube/bus stop early and walk the rest of the way home. Exercise Bikes, Elliptical Cross trainers and treadmills are also great gym equipment for working the leg muscles.

Make your exercise regime work for you – As I hinted at above, not everybody has the time or inclination to put in hours and hours at the gym or take a couple of days off to walk/cycle around the countryside. If you’re one of these people, then exercise equipment hire might just be your charity challenge salvation!

We have teamed up with Hire Fitness who are the UK’s leading fitness equipment hire company.  You can hire all popular types of equipment from Hire Fitness for 4 weeks or more, which will be delivered and installed into your home or office. This way, you can get a 20 minute session on a cross trainer done before you head out to work without having to leave your home, or you can get an exercise bike installed in front of the TV and watch Charity Challenge Veteran Denise Van Outen on Strictly Come Dancing whilst pumping away. When training for her ‘Essex2India’ cycle challenge with us, having a Hire Fitness exercise bike installed in her living room was a massive part of Denise’s own training preparationss! You can visit the Hire Fitness website here, Hire Fitness offers 15% discount on all hire of 16 weeks or more for Charity challenge participants! Visit your members’ area for more details.

Sign up for a training weekend – For those who want to make sure they are on track with their training, we work with Expedition Wise to offer superb tailored training weekends for all charity treks from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon. They offer both cycling and trek preparation training weekends. Sumatra Jungle Trek challenger Elizabeth Woodcroft went along to one of these weekends and found it really useful “I got to know which level I was at and what more I needed to do”.  Kilimanjaro challenger Lauren Lloyd likewise found her weekend training invaluable.

“This weekend was worth every penny…The leaders are obviously made for this kind of job and their knowledge and passion for expedition life was shared endlessly. No question was seen to be too petty and every answer was given in depth. I would thoroughly recommend that anyone intending on going on expedition should attend an Expedition Wise training weekend”

To find out more about training weekends, you can visit our website page here or go to the expedition wise website directly here.

So there you have it! Take note of these 5 rules and should be well on your way to conquering your charity challenge and having the time of your life! For more top tips, and to learn more about all our charity challenges, please visit our website at www.charitychallenge.com, and, to keep up to date on all our challenge news, subscribe to this blog by clicking on the orange RSS button, you can also enter your email address into the adjacent box to subscribe to our mailing list.

Challenges, Inspiration

Happy ‘Dashain’! Find out about this colourful Nepalese Festival here

October 16, 2012

The longest and most auspicious of Nepal’s annual celebrations, the 15-day festival of Dashain is also probably one of its most eagerly anticipated. As the skies above the bustling streets of Kathmandu fill with kites, families across the country prepare to don new clothes and celebrate the victory of the goddess, Durga over the evil demon, Mahishasura. This is a time for celebration and family. It has to be said though, the animal population of Nepal don’t greet the celebrations with quite the same level of anticipation. During the festival goats, buffaloes and chickens in their thousands become an integral part of the sacrifice and the feasting!

The festival begins on Ghatasthapana, the first day of the bright lunar fortnight of the month of Ashvin. On this auspicious day the priests bless the holy water vessel, known as the ‘Kalash’, which is then installed in a prayer room on a bed of soil that is seeded with grains of barley, wheat or rice. For the next nine days these vessels and their germinating seeds are chanted over and nurtured by the most senior male member of the household. By the tenth day, Dashami, the sacred grass (called ‘Jamara’) has reached a length of some six inches and it, along with a mixture of ‘tika’, made from rice, yoghurt and vermillion, is bestowed on the younger members of the family. The red of the tika is meant to signify the blood that binds the family together. Continue Reading…

Responsible Tourism

Carbon Offsetting… It’s only fair

October 4, 2012

 It’s only fair…

As you psyche yourself up for the challenge you have set yourself, focussed on achieving your goals and raising much needed funds for your selected charity, we think it’s only fair we ensure that you can rest easy with regard to your impact on the environment.

So, five years ago we made a decision to offset carbon emissions from all our staff and customer flights, helping to protect the environment and improve the lives of millions of people across the world. We are delighted to report that we have now offset over 10,000 tonnes of CO2, that’s like taking more than 3000 cars off the road for a year.

I hear the sceptics amongst you ask – does carbon offsetting really help the environment?

We are convinced that it does. Even with the most determined efforts to cut emissions, we are all still responsible for carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere. We can choose to ignore this and take no action. Or we can take responsibility and ensure that an equivalent amount of carbon is reduced elsewhere by carbon reduction projects.

And, as renowned environmentalist Jonathan Porritt recently said:

“If we are serious about tackling climate change – and the latest evidence from the Arctic underlines the urgency of doing so – then sound, science-based offsets should be a vital part of our toolkit. We simply cannot achieve the scale and speed of carbon reductions required by curbing our own emissions alone. But by investing in best quality offsets, we can start to make the sweeping cuts needed – while at the same time helping improve people’s quality of life in the here and now. It honestly should be a ‘no brainer’!” 

We work with industry experts ClimateCare to support projects that not only cut carbon emissions but save lives. How is that possible? Through offsetting emissions with world first, award winning projects like Carbon for Water.

This short video will tell you more in a few minutes than I could explain in the next ten pages, but in short, the project distributes simple gravity fed water filters, providing safe water to 4.5 million people in Kenya.

The filters mean women and girls no longer need to spend hours every day, collecting firewood to boil water and making it safe to drink. In this way the project cuts more than 2 million tonnes of CO2 a year. It also reduces waterborne diseases and reduces health problems caused by exposure to smoky fires.

Projects like this are made possible by money generated through sale of the carbon reductions to companies like us. And we are proud to support them on your behalf.

To learn more about all our charity challenges, and find out how else we get involved with responsible tourism you can read our Responsible Tourism policy here, and you can visit our website at www.charitychallenge.com . To keep up to date on all our challenge news, you can subscribe to this blog by clicking on the orange RSS button, you can also enter your email address into the adjacent box to subscribe to our mailing list.

Challenges, Inspiration

Tales from the Trek Transylvania, By Charity Challenge bookings Manager Carmel

September 20, 2012

As the Bookings Manager at Charity Challenge, I am usually busy helping to coordinate the bookings in the office and spend most my time in envy of our freelance leaders who get to meet inspirational Challengers and experience the treks first-hand. Not this August though, when I was lucky enough to take part on one of our best and toughest European challenges in the so-called ‘Transylvanian Alps’ of Romania.

Romania isn’t an area of the world I had visited before, although I’ve heard some really great things about the country, so I really had no idea what to expect from the challenge other than it was going to be tough… and when my group of 7 got through Heathrow airport and onto the plane with only a few slightly worrying bag searches (Ewen’s rogue tarot cards seemed to have caused a disturbance), I knew that it was going to be a good week.

I think our EU challenges have a reputation for being slightly easier than others, but this is a total misconception. On our overseas challenges there are always days factored in to acclimatize and overcome jetlag, whereas in Transylvania you enjoy 4 solid days of trekking sandwiched in between tiring flights and sightseeing. The first day after touching down in Bucharest, where we met our infamous guide Ion, who was to become one of the heroes of the challenge, the group was taken immediately to the bus and we enjoyed a sightseeing tour of the beautiful Transylvanian city of Brasov, which still retains many of the 14th Century architectural features as well as the slightly bizarre ‘Hollywood’ inspired sign, set high up in the mountains surrounding the town.

This challenge is made up of 4 days, of which two are sort of a warm-up and cool-down day but will be long, hilly and extremely beautiful, and the other two are very tough, with difficult ascents and descents throughout the day.  One of the great things about the challenge is that you barely see anyone else on the trails at all. In fact the first and the third days were a real opportunity to see the shepherd huts and rural villages that make the culture of this area of Romania so unique in relation to the rest of the country. Although we didn’t see many people, we certainly saw a lot of sheep – I’m always going to remember Adriana being split from the group by a herd of sheep and running through them, arms flailing, while the rest of the group took a break to laugh at her situation! (we were concerned, of course).

Although you do need a certain level of fitness to complete the challenge, it was a testament to the group that we had so many people of different ages, backgrounds, injuries (I’m thinking of you Vicki!) and everyone managed to push themselves out of their comfort zone and get a lot out of the challenge. Which is basically our aim! After 3 hours of uphill struggle on day two of the challenge, Andrew, who has the Brecon Beacons on his back doorstep as a training ground, said that it’s ‘probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done’. And Kevin, who had already booked a place to climb Machu Picchu next year, was glad that he had taken on Transylvania in preparation for the dizzy heights (pardon the altitude pun) of the Andes. But the great thing about this challenge, without a doubt (aside from the scenery!), is the help and support you will get from the guiding team in country throughout. Despite a discovery of a fear of heights at the top of the narrow and steep ridge, Xanthe got past it and to the summit with the help of one of our amazing mountain guides, Florin, who helped her through the rough patch without having to look down. Meanwhile Ion was helping to push and pull Vicki up the scrambling section as she had her hand in a cast. Massive respect to her for completing that part with only one hand – I’m still impressed and not sure how she managed it! The scrambling day is the last day and after reaching the summit of 1800m we were rewarded for our efforts with lunch and a fantastic view over Transylvania, stretching from the Bucegi massive to the section of Pietra Crailui that we had just ascended.

I mentioned something earlier about Ion being a hero… well after Katie had taken the descents so hard on her knees over the week, it was impossible for her to go on for the last 90mins of the trek. Ion carried her (sometimes literally) down the hill, beating the rest of the group, before returning to help the rest of us. He then drove us home, served us all dinner and left in the morning at 5.30am to take part in a mountain biking competition with Florin. And, digressing from the trek a little, he ended up withdrawing from the competition in order to help an ambulance find an injured competitor. What a guy.

So with thanks to the brilliant guides, and lots of spectacular photos to take home, I said goodbye to the group at Heathrow airport. Through our struggles, successes and overdose on cheese (three meals a day!) we’ve all had some interesting bonding moments and I hope that they take away some great memories of Transylvania.

Noroc! (Cheers)

If you’ve been inspired by Carmel’s adventure, you can find out more about our Trek Transylvania here. You can find out more information about all our amazing challenges on our website at www.charitychallenge.com. To keep up to date on all our challenge news, please subscribe to this blog. You can also enter your email address into the adjacent box to subscribe to our mailing list.

Challenges

China’s legendary terracotta army still growing!

September 17, 2012

Like so many zombies or Mummies in horror movie flicks, it seems Emperor Qinshihuang’s terracotta army just keeps on coming! As last week Chinese archeologists unearthed more than 100 additional soldiers, bringing total number of clay warriors found at Xi’an mausoleum to more than 8,000.

The Terracotta Army, otherwise known as the “Terra Cotta Warriors and Horses” first came to light when they were discovered on March 29, 1974 by a group of well digging farmers. They are believed to be sculptural depictions of the armies of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of unified China, assembled to ensure his passage and continual protection in the afterlife. Continue Reading…