The Purpose

The 'Delivering Light' Eiffel Tower Climb challenge is about raising money for the Murambinda Mission Hospital in Zimbabwe. Specifically, to improve the care and survival rates of the new born at Murambinda Mission Hospital, hopefully by up to 50%. It aims to address, amongst other things, the disturbing reports that The Friends of Murambinda Hospiatl (FMH) have received of  midwives having to do their vital work by candle light, or torchlight during  frequent, unpredictable power cuts. How the target is to be reached is detailed under 'Achieving the Improvement' below.

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The Challenge Completed on 20th October 2024

The challenge faced by Bill (76) was to walk up the stairs to the second floor (674 steps, 116m) of the Eiffel Tower, then walk back down. The initial ascent he accomplished in just under 12 minutes. Not wanting to waste the wonderful views from the second floor he took his time about coming down, taking numerous photos of the surrounding city and the structure itself.

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To meet the second part of the challenge, which was to walk a further 7 mile around Paris (in practice more like nine miles), Bill set off across the magnificent Pont d'Iena heading up to the Esplanade de Trocadéro. From there to the Place du Trocadero, the Place Victor Hugo, the Arc de Triomphe, the Champs-Élysées to the Place de la Concorde, through the Jardin des Tuileries to the Musée du Louvre. However, the plan went slightly adrift when Bill emerged from the Louvre onto the north bank of the Seine slightly further up stream than he was expecting, so the first bridge he crossed as part of the return journey to the tower was the Pont Neuf, which actually connects to the Îsle del la Cité from both banks.  This crossing was followed by the Pont des Arts, Pont du Carousel, Pont Royal and the Passerelle Léopold-Sédar-Senghor. This latter bridge is a pedestrian only bridge on two levels that meet up in the middle. To counter the effect of having included an extra bridge, Bill crossed this bridge twice - once on each level. He then resumed his crossings via the Pont de la Concorde, Pont Alexandre III, Pont des Invalides, Pont de l'Alma, the Passerelle Debilly, before finally arriving back on the south bank via the Pont de l'Alma. Although Bill had notionally entertained the idea of making one of the crossings a swim, apart from recent Olympic Games experience showing that pollution levels can rise rapidly above safe levels, the current was so strong on the day that to attempt it would have been insane.

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The target time for the whole challenge was three hours, from the start of the climb to arriving back at the tower. In the event the tower climb and descent and making use of the facilities took about 35 minutes and the walk took a further 2hrs 31 - so not a bad estimate. Not included in these figures was the walk to and from the hotel, which was another half hour each way. ​

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As had previously demonstrated when climbing the Redcar Beacon, the tracking program being used - Strava - is not very good when tracking climbs up tall metal structures, but seems not to be so bad when out in the open. 

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Please note that all money raised will be going to the hospital for this project - the expense of Bill and his wife going to, and staying in Paris was entirely met by them.

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