When Wayne Dill first signed up for a challenge that required him to walk, cycle and climb one of the largest mountains in South East Asia, he thought it would be a piece of cake and a great way to raise money for charity.“On paper it looked very simple,” said the 53-year-old, a business analyst at PricewaterhouseCoopers. “The Kota Kinabalu Challenge, run by Greenlight Adventures, was a one-week multi-challenge race through the jungles of Borneo, and up Mount Kinabalu, the highest mountain in South East Asia.”Participants had to complete a 4k race, a 6k cycle and a 4k raft it didn’t seem like long distances to him. He decided to take up the challenge as a way to raise money for Raleigh International Bermuda.A development programme for Bermudians between the ages of 17 and 25, Raleigh International usually culminates in a physical challenge and community service in another country.“I had been planning to do the Ironman 70.3 triathlon in Singapore,” said Mr Dill. “I had intended to raise money for Rotary International Polio Plus. I was at the gym and I ran into a friend of mine, Dueane Dill. We were talking and I told him that I was going to Singapore. He suggested I think about the Kinabalu Challenge. He invited me to come to a meeting to hear what the challenge was. He also shared information about Raleigh Bermuda. I thought it was a great programme for 17 to 25-year-old Bermudians. I couldn’t think of anything that was more transformational.”Mr Dill had been involved for years with the Rotary Exchange programme. That initiative sends students to live in other countries for several months, and in turn brings students from other countries to Bermuda.“They come back fantastic young people,” he said. “I thought it would be great to create awareness and raise some funds for Raleigh, a similar programme to Rotary Exchange. I chose to throw my hat in and accept Dueane’s invitation to join his team, and also to create awareness and raise money for Raleigh.”The two men travelled with another Bermudian, Phillip Faries, to Malaysia where they joined a fourth teammate from Britain. As the challenge kicked off, Mr Dill realised that he had greatly underestimated the difficulty.“I am very sporty normally,” he said. “I thought I was reasonably fit. There was a gap for me between my expectations and the reality of the challenge and its fitness requirements. It was intensely difficult, the terrain, the temperature, any variable that I could think about was very challenging and very difficult.“The hardest part for me was getting from base camp to Laban Rata, which is part the way up Mount Kinabalu. It was a 7.5K trek and it took me seven hours to do it. When I got to Laban Rata I was completely exhausted physically and emotionally. You had to walk along a very rocky, narrow trail up the side of a mountain. It was relatively cool but you expend so much energy because it is not a clear cut path. You have to make your own path up the mountain. It is like you are going up a million and one steps.”Mr Dill was fortunate that he met an experienced climber the night before the race, who had spent the previous summer at base camp at Mount Everest. The man explained the difference between trekking and climbing and gave Mr Dill advice on how to dress, what to put in his rucksack, how to approach the trail and even where to stop for lunch.“He said, ‘don’t underestimate your need for water’,” said Mr Dill. “One of the biggest mistakes I made was being too aggressive when I started out. It is all about pacing yourself, and staying slow and steady. It is really about finding the path of least resistance. You take small gentle steps, not bounding powerful ones.”He quickly realised that he was woefully undertrained for such an undertaking. Still, he made it through.“Once I got to Laban Rata it was a great sense of accomplishment but that was short-lived,” he said. “From Laban Rata we had a more difficult trek. The next three kilometres were to the top of Mount Kinabalu. Difficult is not the right word to describe this part.”The climb was mostly in darkness, single file. Because of the sheerness of the climb, he was out of his depth on more than one occasion. He managed by watching the footing of the person in front of him. The hardest part was when the vegetation ended on the incline to the summit.“Doing it at night is a plus because it is cooler,” he said. “But it is pitch black and you have a headlamp. Once I got on the incline there was a sense of ‘okay I can do this’. From the incline you can see in the distance the summit and you can see climbers up there because of the headlamps and you just keep going. It turned very rocky and so we had to climb over a lot of crevices. When I looked, without any sense of awareness, there was the summit sign. The next thing was just to find a place to sit. You had more people than you had space.”Once he found a seat, he took pictures and watched the sun rise. Then it became unbearably cold. He started his descent once the sun was out.“As I was going down I thought, ‘I can’t believe that I walked up here’.”Mr Dill said the whole experience was almost spiritual in nature and definitely life-changing.“Once I got up there, I had no choice but to reflect on events in recent years,” he said. “I also had to consider what I hoped to achieve in the future. It becomes an analogy for so many things, especially questions of faith and where you are in life. It is so cliché.”The challenge required far more energy than he’d initially thought, Mr Dill said.The other teams taking part were considerably younger than he was; several were members of the British military and had been training for months. The challenge was won by an all female team from Wales. Mr Dill’s team came dead last and they got a booby prize of a stuffed orangutan.“One of our biggest challenges was that [Dueane Dill] seriously hurt his foot on the first day, which made running very difficult for him,” said Mr Dill. “But he put in the most amazing effort. I didn’t have an injury and I know how difficult I found it. I couldn’t imagine doing these activities with an injury like Dueane’s.”So far he has raised $1,500 for Raleigh Bermuda. Persons can donate directly to the charity. For more information see their Facebook page or visit www.raleigh.bm.