After seven days of altitude sickness, blisters and freezing temperatures, a batch of hardy celebs have made it to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro.
Shirley Ballas, Ed Balls and Little Mix’s Jade Thirlwall and Leigh-Anne Pinnock are among the stars who reached the summit this morning, after a grueling climb.
The final part of the trek took place overnight as they set off for eight hours of walking in the dark, in order to make it to the summit for dawn.
Their triumph was announced on the Comic Relief Twitter page:
Jade will be especially pleased, as after admitting how much she was craving a Toby Carvery, the restaurant chain has pulled through for her:
Get in.
With a summit 5895m high, Kilimanjaro is the tallest mountain in Africa.
This group’s climb comes exactly 10 years after the first set of A-listers climb the mountain for Comic Relief.
While the celebs have kept their spirits up with sing-songs and frequent chats about their motivations for taking on the challenge, the climb has still presented plenty of tough moments.
Sports Pundit Osi Umenyiora described the penultimate day as “tough, very, very tough”.
“We’ve got a whole lot more to go, so we’re really going to have to dig deep to find exactly what it is that’s going to get us up that mountain,” he said.
“Because it’s going to probably be the most difficult thing we’ve ever done in our lives.
“I know exactly what I’m doing it for. I’ve had malaria before and I know people who are still dying from that disease and the fact that we’re going to raise money that is actually going to save lives is keeping us going.”
Jade and Anita Rani are two of the stars who suffered from particularly nasty sickness, with the latter admitting she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to finish the expedition.
“That had me balling my eyes out like a small child, so there is a lot of emotion,” she previously said.