Intrepid fundraisers complete Mount Kilimanjaro trek to raises thousands for good cause
A team of five intrepid fundraisers climbed Mount Kilimanjaro to raise £60,000 for charities.
The group tackled the endurance feat as a 50th birthday challenge for one of their number – Suresh Bawa.
Mr Bawa, a patron and co-founder of Wolverhampton's Promise Dreams charity, scaled the heights alongside his son Arran, and pals Neil Taylor, Scott Bernard and Brett Bernard.
They were due to be joined by fitness guru Chris Jewkes – and had dubbed themselves 'The Big Six' – but he suffered a knee injury and could not take part.
Mr Taylor, landlord of The Fox, at Shipley, raised £19,000 from the climb for Birmingham Children's Hospital.
With the help of the money raised from the climb, Neil has raised a near total of £100,000 for the hospital since 2012.
He began his fundraising journey for Birmingham Children's Hospital after the hospital saved his daughter's life.
Kiahna, 10, was born with a life threatening heart problem and has undergone five heart operations at the hospital.
Since then, Neil has run the London Marathon, Paris Marathon, New York Marathon – but admitted Kilimanjaro was one of his hardest challenges yet.
Mr Taylor said: "It was a truly amazing experience but it was very tough, especially on summit night as the weather was against us, it was very windy and it was -25 degrees.
"We were in a group of 28 people and 10 people didn't make it.
"One man had a heart attack, someone else had swelling on the brain, five people had hypothermia and three people had to go back down the mountain due to exhaustion.
"When we got to the top it was a mixture of feeling ecstatic and pure exhaustion all at the same time. It's truly unbelievable – like being on the roof of the world." Kilimanjaro is the highest free standing mountain in the world, rising 5,895 metres above sea level.
The team set off on October 20 and scaled the mountain in five and a half days, then descended in one and a half days,
Mr Taylor said: "It went well for us as we'd been training for 11 months and the charities involved are close to our hearts. We made it." Scott and Brett Bernard, who own The Mount Hotel, climbed the mountain in aid of The Way Youth Zone based in Wolverhampton.
The charity helps young people and the climbers raised £14,000.
Mr Bawa and his son raised over £27,000 for Promise Dreams, which helps sick or terminally ill children to achieve their life-long dreams. He said: "It's been a life changing experience and it was awesome to raise the amount of money that we did for charity.
"It shows that when you come together, you can achieve."
