Support from the Welsh Sports Association and Sports Council Wales

Each year the Welsh Sport's Association's "Outdoor Pursuits Group", provides annual Grant Aid support for overseas expeditions, on behalf of the Sports Council for Wales. In addition to the Wilderness Award and BMC grant, we were also one of a number of successful recipients for their support.

The WSA/SCW support a wide range of outdoor sports adventures and expeditions whose participants are Welsh based - whether by descent or residence. Examples of previous expeditions have been Simon Burke's and Olly Sanders' trip to Itoorquatmitt, N.E. Greenland for a climbing/kayaking adventure, John Silvester's long distance paragliding trip across Pakistan/Karakorums/China or Martin Groves' trip to Castleguard cave, Banff National Park, Canada to push and explore the far sump.

Please check out http://www.welshsports.org.uk/OverseasExpeditionGrants.asp for more details on the scheme.

Thanks!

Support from the Wilderness Lectures and the Wilderness Award.

We would also like to thank the Wilderness Lectures for their support. Each year they hold their annual Wilderness Award which is a "cash award made to a UK resident over the age of 18 who intends to travel overseas, returning before 31st January of the following year, to undertake an unusual and adventurous objective in a geographically remote wilderness area." (source: www.wildernesslectures.com).

Previous recipients of the Award have been for all sorts of expeditions/trips, such as last year's winner, Felicity Aston and Jenny Pugh for their uber-long traverse of Lake Baikal using ski's, kites and crampons or Rob Eavis' caving expedition to the White Mountain of Crete. To learn more about the Award and the Wilderness Lectures itself, please visit their website (see above).

In return for their support we will be giving a talk on the 17th Febuary 2010 (yes, a long way away, but time moves fast!) on our trip. Let's hope it all goes to plan and if it doesn't, I expect we will have a lot of interesting things to talk about - that is if it doesn't concern contracting Hepatitis A ; ). Please see their website for their additional talks/lectures.

Support from the British Mountaineering Council

We would like to thank the British Mountaineering Council for supporting our expedition. We were one of the grateful recipients of the BMC's annual expedition award/grant, along with nine other teams that are headed out to other curious and far-flung places such as Greenland, Russia, the Yukon and Kyrgyzstan.

In case you're interested, here is the exerpt from the BMC's Expedition Award page concerning our trip:

"One of the more unusual trips supported is Steve Beckwith's and Matthew Traver's attempt on the unclimbed South West Pillar of the Dragon's Horns on Malaysia's Tioman Island. The Welsh-based pair was awarded £400 and plan to climb in July-August. The only other established climb on the island was put up in 1999 on the South Face: reaching the base of the c500m granite pillar to the left, which will involve trail breaking through dense jungle, is likely to prove one of the cruxes." Source: http://www.thebmc.co.uk/Feature.aspx?id=3083 - well worth a read to see what everyone else is up to.

It seems all are off to cooler climes, except for ourselves as we roast our pale, sun-starved skin in the unrelenting tropical sun and drown in the humidity - maybe they've got it right?

Please visit http://www.thebmc.co.uk/ for further information on the organisation itself.