The Travis Perkins Group has donated £10,000 worth of building materials and a specially designed kitchen to ‘The Coldest Journey’ Antarctic expedition, led by Sir Ranulph Fiennes.
The materials will be used to construct two specially engineered cabooses (sledge mounted living quarters) which will house the six man team along with their equipment and fuel for the entire 2,000 mile journey. The expedition will see them withstand temperatures as low as -90oC, travelling mostly in complete darkness.
In addition to the materials from merchant Travis Perkins, kitchen specialists Benchmarx Kitchen & Joinery supplied a custom built kitchen and storage accessories designed to utilise the limited space within one of the cabooses.
The Coldest Journey is the first ever attempt to cross the trans-Antarctic continent during the polar winter. The ultimate objective is to raise £6 million for Seeing is Believing, a charity which works to tackle avoidable blindness, but the team will also undertake a number of scientific tasks to provide unique data on marine life, oceanography, meteorology and the effect of climate change upon the poles.
Linda Doughty, Travis Perkins Trade Marketing Director said: “Travis Perkins prides itself on supporting projects that aid worthy causes - when we heard of this amazing expedition, we wanted to help in any way possible. The journey covers some of the most inaccessible parts of the world and we wanted to be able to provide the best materials so that the team had the most technically advanced cabooses possible.”
Seeing is Believing is a collaboration between Standard Chartered and the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) to tackle avoidable blindness in developing countries. Since its launch in 2003, the programme has reached over 28 million people.
