Three year 9 boys from Christchurch have done the impossible - they cycled up Mt Everest.
Well, the equivalent at least. They actually cycled up Mt Pleasant about 22-and-a-half times to raise money for Fijian orphanage Treasure House.
Luke Jansen and his family visited Fiji on a family holiday in 2019, but rather than spending their time vacationing, they decided to spend several days helping out at the orphanage.
That experience stuck, particularly with Luke, who remembered how grateful the children were even when what they changed was so small.
Luke, who is at Middleton Grange School, rallied some of his mates - Kiki Anglem, of Hillview Christian School, and Silas Jones, of Cashmere High School - to complete the Everest Challenge last weekend and raise funds to help the children in the orphanage.
Their aim was to ride the height of Mt Everest from sea level - 8848m.
What they achieved was 270km horizontally and 8886m vertically over 20.5 hours spread out over Saturday and Sunday.
This was the second time they attempted the challenge, but the first was just for fun and they only made it about 7500m.
They cycled up Mt Pleasant Rd to the top, then dropped down through Evans Pass down to Lyttelton, and then went up again.
Sometimes, if the road was quiet, they would cycle Lyttelton to Evans Pass and back to Lyttelton.
The climbers only counted the metres uphill, not downhill.
They were occasionally joined by some of their mates and fathers.
To keep them fed and energised, Luke’s father, Greg Jansen, put on a barbecue with sausages, eggs and hash browns. The boys were pretty tired at the end, but still chirpy.
The initial goal was to raise $1000, but the boys raised more than $2500 - and still counting.
Luke left for the orphanage last week to help them out and to give them the money raised.
