Sydney, Australia – A blind British adventurer touched down in Sydney on Monday to end an epic 13,500-mile flight by a microlight aircraft from London.
Miles Hilton-Barber braved snowstorms, freezing temperatures and torrential downpours during his 54-day journey under the supervision of sighted co-pilot Richard Meredith-Hardy.
“It’s the fulfillment of an amazing dream,” Hilton-Barber, 58, told reporters at Sydney’s Bankstown airport. “I’ve wanted to be a pilot since I was a kid. Now I’m totally blind and I’ve had the privilege of flying more than halfway around the world.”
Hilton-Barber, who lost his eyesight to a hereditary condition about 20 years ago, is hoping the trip will raise $2 million for the charity Seeing Is Believing, which works for the prevention of blindness in developing countries.
He took to the skies on March 7 with the aid of an audio device that reads out navigational information such as air speed and altitude. Hilton-Barber also has conquered Mount Kilimanjaro and Mont Blanc, run marathons in the Sahara and Gobi deserts, and even attempted to reach the South Pole, hauling a sledge over 250 miles of Antarctic ice.
