A RUSSIAN Orthodox priest has entered the record books after enduring 11 days of freezing temperatures and ferocious storms to become the fastest person to fly solo around the world in a hot air balloon.

    However, Fedor Konyukhov was less interested in his historic achievement and more excited by the prospect of his first shower in almost two weeks after he touched down in the Australian outback Saturday.

    His 56-meter-tall helium and hot air balloon had begun its journey 11 days and six hours earlier, starting out in Perth, before heading across Australia, over the South Pacific to Chile, Argentina and Uruguay before reaching Brazil on day seven.

    It was the last time the intrepid explorer had seen dry land again until he arrived on the Western coast of Australia on Saturday.

    His journey of more than 21,100 miles (33,957 km) also took him through a thunder storm in the Antarctic Circle, where temperatures outside the gondola — which measured just 2 meters high, 2 meters long and 1.8 meters wide — fell to minus 50 degrees Celsius.

    The gondola heating stopped working Thursday, so Konyukhov had to thaw his drinking water with the balloon’s main hot air burner.

    The journey also took him to speeds up to 240 kilometers per hour and heights up to 10,614 meters before he released helium to prevent the balloon from continually climbing as its fuel load lightened, his son Oscar Konyukhov said.

    Konyukhov aimed to get four hours of sleep a day in naps of 30 or 40 minutes between hours of checking and maintaining equipment and instruments.

    But Konyukhov’s team had said that landing the balloon could be the most challenging and dangerous part of the journey.

    Crews in six helicopters were following the 1.8-ton balloon inland to help Konyukhov land somewhere along a 500 kilometer stretch of outback between Northam and the gold mining town of Kalgoorlie.

    “We’ve got to keep him up a bit longer because there’s quite a bit of wind on the ground here,” support team member Steve Griffin said ahead of the landing.

    “We want to get him a bit further inland where there’s a bit more open space and some big paddocks and hopefully get him clear of power lines which are a big concern.

    “The balloon is coated with an aluminum foil so we don’t want it touching power lines or the whole thing will become live.”

    In the end though, Konyukhov walked away unharmed — apart from a slight bruise on his cheek. He had expected to be dragged along the ground for several kilometers before coming to a halt.

    Konyukhov’s journey smashed the previous record, which had been held for 14 years. In 2002 American businessman Steve Fossett also started from Northam to set a record of 13 days and eight hours for his 33,000-kilometer journey.(SD-Agencies)