Explorer's Tamar row at 89

22-MILE PADDLE ALSO A RAINFOREST FUNDRAISER

- By OLIVIER VERGNAULT

WORLD famous adventurer Robin Hanbury-Tenison has come out of retirement to complete a challenge for his 89th birthday - a 22-mile row down the River Tamar.

The explorer was the first person to travel overland by jeep from London to Sri Lanka in 1957 and the following year became the first person (with Richard Mason) to cross South America overland at its widest point.

The President of the human rights charity Survival International, he celebrated his 80th birthday in 2015-16 by undertaking eight challenges, starting with the London Marathon, which raised more than £80,000.

Mr Hanbury-Tenison also led the Royal Geographical Society's largest expedition, taking a group of 115 scientists into the rainforest in Borneo for 15 months from 1977 to 1978.

And now, to mark his 89th birthday he has completed a 22-mile paddle down the River Tamar in aid of another charity that’s close to his heart, The Thousand Year Trust, founded by his son Merlin on Bodmin Moor, with the aim to restore Britain's temperate rainforest.