TRAVELLING around 4,500 miles off the beaten track across 10 European countries is the challenge facing a father and his sons.

Simon, 52, Mathew, 24, and 20-year-old Andrew Hodding will be embarking on their Ipswich to Istanbul challenge, dubbed Herald for Heroes, later this month.

The trio will be travelling in a rare 1963 model Triumph Herald 12/50 through France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria before reaching their final destination.

Mr Hodding, of Dobbs Drift, Kesgrave, said: “I’m disabled and my son Mathew has ME so rather than just sitting around we decided we wanted to do something for charity.

“Initially we wanted to drive to India but decided it was too dangerous so we put together a list of 10 countries with the destination of Istanbul purely because haven’t been there before.”

The family plan to travel up to 250 miles every day and share the driving while staying in B&Bs throughout the trip.

Mr Hodding added: “We’ve worked out it will take around 10 days to get to Istanbul where we plan to stay for a couple of days before driving back.

“P&O have been great and given us free first class travel from Dover to Calais to start out challenge on April 21.” The journey will be made a Triumph Herald, called Primrose, that Mr Hodding bought around 18 months ago.

“Hopefully, she’ll hold out for the challenge and we won’t have any problems,” he added.

Mr Hodding said he wants to raise as much as possible for Help for Heroes.

“A lot of servicemen and women end up with mental and physical disabilities with several ending up on the streets so we want to help them,” he added.

“Initially we had set out to raise £10,000 but that’s unrealistic so we hope to raise as much as possible.

The family members are hoping to make the Herald for Heroes challenge an annual event.

Visit www.heraldforheroes.org to sponsor the trio.