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Vernon battles the barrel for children’s welfare

When a man in his fifties announced that he is going to break his own record by living in a wine barrel, stuck to the end of a 23 meter pole for the next three months, the village folk of Dullstroom questioned his sanity.

Vernon Kruger is no stranger to Dullstroom, nor to the concept of nesting in a barrel in the sky. In fact, Vernon currently holds the Guinness World Record for having lived in a 500 litre barrel for 67 days and 14 minutes.

He set this world record in 1997, in front of the Dullstroom Inn at the age of 29.

Today, on Guinness World Record Day, Vernon will try to break his own record, 22 years later, but not because he lost his sanity.

Vernon Kruger has a burning passion for children and his whole life has been a mission to help them.

So all of the funding he makes from his battle of the barrel challenge will be handed over to the Belfast Children’s Home and the Epilepsy Dullstroom Centre.

Rebecca Mashigo from the Epilepsy Dullstroom Centre, Vernon Kruger and Johan Theart from the Belfast Children’s Home.

Vernon was hoisted into his barrel at 12:00 today by helicopter, where he plans to stay for as long as he can.

His food, drinks and other essentials will be sent up to him by bucket, all sponsored and prepared for by the Dullstroom community.

Vernon and his barrel can be found at the Dullstrrom Greens.

If you wish to assist in funding to help a child in need, contact Fiona or Lynnette at 013 254 0020 or 079 052 7872.

At Caxton, every story is written by humans. We use AI only to perform quality checks - never to generate the news. Happy reading!

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Sjani Campher

Sjani has been working as a community journalist and photographer at the Middelburg Observer since 2018, during which she has been responsible for the content creation for both digital and print, as well as maintaining the publication's online platforms. She is a member of the Forum for Community Journalists, and focuses on fields including hard news, investigative reporting, human interest, columns and sports.
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