Up for global adventure? (From Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard)

Up for global adventure?

Essence meets a Cirencester-based organisation that sends people to the most inhospitable parts of the world... for fun.

It was one of those ideas that pops up when you least expect it.

And in the case of former Army commando, Tony Martin, it happened to be at 40,000 over the Atlantic while returning from a grueling race to the Magnetic North Pole.

The Cirencester businessman and former champion jockey Richard Dunwoody had just finished second in Polar Race - an eventful challenge, during which they were forced to contend with frostbite, dislocated shoulders and angry bears.

For many people, the thought of six months in front of the fire with a bottle or two of whisky may have seemed appropriate, but, in my own experience, Tony isn't the sort of chap who spends too long in any one place.

And, thanks to his initial insight and adventurous tendencies, the 'no-nonsense' survival expert now finds himself as managing director of arguably the most unique events company in the world - with its roots firmly planted in the centre of Cirencester.

Tony set up Venture Challenge with members of the winning team Initial Style Explorers last year and the group quickly set about organising their own 320-mile race from Resolute Bay in Canada to the world's northernmost point.

The whole event was televised and attracted widespread international media coverage.

And, following that success, the company, which is based in a quaint courtyard off Black Jack Street, decided to expand the organisation to include endurance events in South America, Belize, Mongolia and Greenland.

Tony said: "One the plane on the way home from our race, I decided that it would be good to offer the experience we'd just had to everyone. "With the right information and professionals skills, I knew it could work so we all got together and decided to make it happen.

"There isn't an organisation in the world now that offers the range of extreme endurance survival challenges we do and, because of the knowledge and skill base we have, we are able to make them accessible to anyone with a decent level of fitness."

Polar Challenge 2005, which took place in May, has proved extremely popular, and Essence readers will be keen to follow the fortunes of Cotswold teams Hardware.com and Commando Joe.

However, while the winners, South Cerney-based Rory Sweet and his team-mates (Hardware.com) and runners-up Charlie Martell and his colleagues (Commando Joe) battled temperatures as low as -50 degrees in the Arctic, Tony's staff were already planning ahead to the next gruelling challenge.

There's jungle survival in Belize Challenge, a camel trek through the Gobi Desert in Mongolia Challenge, and Greenland Challenge is a coast to coast kite race.

For my own sins, I, along with team-mates Mac McKinnon, Steve Barton and Gareth Richards, will be taking part in Inca Challenge in September - a high-altitude, 1,000km mountain bike race through the Bolivian and Chilean Andes.

Like many of the challenge teams, we are raising money for several worthy causes - the Cirencester Hospital Scanner Appeal, Cancer Research and the Parkinson's Disease Society in our case.

And - I can vouch for this myself - these events really do change the way you look at life... for the better.

The discipline of the training, the healthier diet, the sense of teamwork and camaraderie and the setting of a remarkable goal give you new focus. And, let's face it, anything that can keep a journalist away from the pub has got to be spectacular.

The find out more about any of the challenges and the teams that have entered log-on to www.venture-challenge For more information about Paul's Inca Challenge, log-on to www.mountainmission.co.uk