AT THE halfway stage of the G4 Land Rover Challenge, former Crayford Scout and UK representative Brian Reynolds is 13th in a field of 18 countries.

Russian Dmitry Timokhin is leading the way in the extravagant worldwide event which challenges competitor's strategy skills, fitness and mental toughness over a series of activities.

On bike, in water, on foot and in a Land Rover the competitors completed stage one and two in Thailand and Laos.

Now they move on to Bolivia where the danger of competing at high altitude rears its head.

At the beginning of each weekly stage, countries are paired off and the day is spent driving from challenge to challenge in remote locations with the occasional one-day all-out final for television cameras.

Brian, who was with the First Crayford Scout Group as well as the Second Erith Group and Erith Air Scouts, was paired with Germany and they finished second in the first all-out final.

The 31-year-old said: "Only a week ago I was training in snow at home so to nearly win the opening competition in almost 40C temperatures was great."

On day three on the banks of the River Mekong they suffered a disaster in a cycling challenge when a tree branch flicked up and wrecked the chain of Brian's mountain bike and he was forced to complete the course on foot.

Failing to spot a cave which would have lead them to a marker point he and his German partner spent 45 minutes fighting their way through dense jungle before realising their mistake.

On the way back Brian slipped in cave water cutting his leg and when he finally thought he had finished he discovered he had to fetch the damaged bike by foot resulting in a one-and-quarter-mile run in searing heat.

In week two Brian was paired with the lowest-ranked competitor, Taiwan's Victor Huang, but remained up beat saying: "We'll have a good week.

"It's more remote so I'm hoping for a good stage where we can enjoy the activities.' Brian was grateful to his partner in the orienteering challenge on day nine when, struck down with a stomach bug, the UK man relied on Huang to get them through.

He said: "He was an awesome navigator and we could have done even better except for the language barrier."

Despite taking sixth overall in stage two, Brian dropped to 13th in the challenge standings.