MILESTONES

• 1

  Gaborone - Botswana 1,449km

  Botswana has a landscape defined by the Kalahari Desert and the Okavango Delta, which becomes a lush animal habitat during the seasonal floods. The massive Central Kalahari Game Reserve, with its fossilized river valleys and undulating grasslands is home to numerous animals.

• 2

  Muyombe – Zambia 3,653km

  Zambia is a country of rugged terrain and diverse wildlife, with many parks and safari areas. On its border with Zimbabwe is the famed Victoria Falls – indigenously called Mosi-oa-Tunya, or "Smoke That Thunders" – plunging a misty 108m into narrow Batoka Gorge.

• 3

  Nimule – South sudan 5,722km

  South Sudan’s vast plains and plateaus are drained by the Nile River and its tributaries. This river system runs from south to north across the entire length of the east-central part of the country. At the heart of the country is a clay plain, the centre of which is occupied by an enormous swampy region known as  Al-Sudd (the Sudd).

• 4

  Cairo - Egypt 9,990km

  Egypt dates to the time of the pharaohs. Millennia-old monuments sit along the fertile Nile River Valley, including Giza's colossal Pyramids and Great Sphinx as well as Luxor's hieroglyph-lined Karnak Temple and Valley of the Kings tombs. The capital, Cairo, is home to Ottoman landmarks like Muhammad Ali Mosque and the Egyptian Museum.

• 5

  Petropavl – Kazakhstan 15,774km

  Kazakhstan extends from the Caspian Sea in the west to the Altai Mountains at its eastern border with China and Russia. Its largest metropolis, Almaty, is a long-standing trading hub whose landmarks include Ascension Cathedral, a tsarist-era Russian Orthodox church, and the Central State Museum of Kazakhstan, displaying thousands of Kazakh artifacts.

• 6

  Krasnoyarsk – Russia 17,444km

  Russia spans across 2 continents - Eastern Europe and Northern Asia – and is the largest country in the world by area, encompassing one-eighth of Earth's inhabitable landmass. Russia extends across eleven time zones and borders sixteen sovereign nations, the most of any country in the world.

• 7

  Tynda – Russia 20,085km

  Tynda is Evenki's word related to "flat river bank" or a "place for grazing of deers". The town has a river with the same name, separating the town from the railway station. The 16-floor apartment houses in the centre and wooden barracks in the suburbs are two contrasts left over from Communist times.

• 8

  Magadan – Russia 22,900km

  Magadan is one of the few ports in this remote part of Russia, kept open over winter by resident icebreakers. The town is quite isolated - there is no railway, and you will travel on the only road into town. Once you have reached your finish line you should definitely walk on the ice of the sea - it is a rare experience!