Kayakers bid for record

A team of New Zealand adventurers is on the way to the south Atlantic in a bid to beat an international expedition to one of the world's top kayaking challenges.

The Adventure Philosophy group, made up of Aucklanders Mark Jones and Graham Charles and Marcus Waters from Christchurch, aims to be the first to circumnavigate the island of South Georgia.

In 2001 the team became the first to kayak the Antarctic peninsula but Charles expects South Georgia to be an extra level of difficulty .

The team are starting this month, , to get a head start on a British and Israeli team named Operation South Georgia which is aiming to get to the island next month.

"Because we're going in October, it's going to be cold. I'm banking on it being between 6xC and minus 6C," Charles said.

"The round trip would be about 600km -- if you had perfect weather it would take about two weeks but we've got two months, at our longest option, because we'll end up spending a lot of time sitting on the beach waiting for good weather."

- NZPA