African mission for St Albans and Markyate explorers

DRIVING to Africa will be the toughest challenge yet for a pair of intrepid explorers from St Albans and Markyate. Paul Martin, aged 27, of Charmouth Court in St Albans and Iain Leech, aged 28, of Wesley Road in Markyate are taking part in The Africa Ral

DRIVING to Africa will be the toughest challenge yet for a pair of intrepid explorers from St Albans and Markyate.

Paul Martin, aged 27, of Charmouth Court in St Albans and Iain Leech, aged 28, of Wesley Road in Markyate are taking part in The Africa Rally, an endurance test which asks competitors to drive from Surrey to Cameroon in just over a month.

Paul and Iain, who have called themselves Roon For Improvement, will be competing against around 70 other teams and, as dictated by the rules, they must complete the journey in a left-hand drive car with an engine capacity of less than one litre.

Paul, who works as a project engineer, said that their car Bessie, a white Citroen AX, was very old indeed: "We had to scour the country to find a suitable car for the race and in her present state Bessie is a bit of a rust-bucket! But being an engineer, I hope I'll be able to sort her out by the time we leave."

Paul and Iain will leave for The Africa Rally on December 13 and are expecting to take just over a month to complete the challenge. They will be raising money for their three favourite charities - Send a Cow, Ape Action Africa and The Rainforest Foundation - en route and have already collected over �1,000 so far.

Paul said that he was looking forward to the rally: "I can't wait to be honest and I think Iain and I will make a good time of it even if it ends in disaster! Luckily we both have the ability to laugh through any problems and at the end of the day it's all about how much money we can raise."

You can sponsor Paul and Iain and follow their progress at www.roonforimprovement .com