HE is spending 150 days cycling 6,620 miles (10,651km) across deserts and past mountains and rivers.

Ollie Halford-Guerra set himself the challenge of a lifetime - cycling across the entire length of South America to help people in Nepal.

The 23-year-old from Winchester is pedalling up to 70 miles a day to travel from Cabo Froward in Chile, through Punta Arenas, El Chaltén in Argentina at the foothill of the Andes, towards the end of the Carretera Austral cycle touring route in Chile, up through the capital Santiago, then through Antofagasta and Arica, then Lima, the capital of Peru and on to the northern tip of Colombia.

Ollie will conquer 50-mile (80.4km) ascents and altitudes of up to 4,000m (13,123ft), while navigating 350 miles (563km) around a desert - completing as much of the journey as he can by bike or on foot and camping along the way before he heads home on June 5.

He has already passed Los Pinguinos Natural Monument, home of the largest penguin colonies in southern Chile with 60,000 breeding pairs of Magellanic penguin. He has also passed the giant San Rafael Glacier - the closest tidewater glacier to the equator, calving into Laguna San Rafael.

Ollie, an outdoor instructor who was born in South America, set himself the challenge to satisfy a longing to explore the country he had left before his first birthday.

He said: "Since I can remember I have had an itch to scratch, that I should explore the place my mother, her family and indeed, I came from.

"I am in a position of complete flexibility in my life, with my outdoor work I have moved around a lot not really having anywhere to call home. I wanted to do something incredible with this freedom while it lasted, as you just never know what´s round the corner.

"When I was 12 I watched the Motorcycle Diaries, a film about two young Argentinean men who jump on a motor bike and fumble there way up through the continent of South America. It really inspired me, and since the idea of cycling it had always been in my head.

"I'm rubbish at fixing things and I enjoy a physical challenge so a bike always had more appeal. However, those motor bikes whizzing past have at times looked mighty tempting! But nowhere near enough to make me regret my decided mode of transport."

The challenge, which is only Ollie's second long-distance cycling trip after a previous 100-mile (160km) journey, will help raise cash for the Himalayan Peoples Project, founded by Ollie's cousin Beth Halford, 31, from Romsey.

Any cash raised will help people affected by last year's devastating earthquake as well as the charity's projects to create a health centre in Rolwaling, build a hostel and water supply at the Rolwaling Sangag Choling Monastry School so that children will no longer have to sleep in classrooms and a new residence building at a school for children with disabilities.

For more information about the Himalayan Peoples Project visit hppnepal.com.

To help Ollie with his fundraising appeal visit hppnepal.com/ollies-odyssey.html.