NORTH-EAST weather presenter Trai Anfield is bidding farewell to the cold winter this week as she takes off on a world trip with a difference.

Ms Anfield, a familiar face on BBC TV’s Look North, will be leaving the screens for six months as she takes part in seven challenges around the world to raise awareness of ME – a chronic fatigue condition she has suffered for many years.

She will be joined by fellow sufferer Christina Gates, head of strategy and research at Home Group.

Ms Anfield said: “I’m taking six months away from work to recover my health, and decided to use the time to do something positive too.

“So I’m setting out to break down the myths surrounding ME, and raise money to fund research into its causes and treatment.”

Funds raised will go to the charity ME North East, of which Ms Anfield is a patron.

Her “Seven Relaxing Wonders of the World’, which she describes as gentle challenges, represent the stages that people with ME go through on their own journeys from illness back to physical and emotional wellbeing.

She said: “My aim is to travel the world in the most restorative way possible, not charge round in an adrenaline- fuelled frenzy.”

After flying out on Friday, their first port of call will be the Ayurvedic spa in Sri Lanka, where they will experience the only form of alternative therapy they have not tried – Ayurvedic, which translates as “the science of life”.

Their challenges include swimming with dolphins, taking the train to Macchu Picchu in Peru and cuddling a koala in Australia.

Ms Anfield said: “I have been really excited, though I have been trying to focus on work. Though, once the Christmas week came, I went into orbit.”

The North-East is fast becoming a centre of excellence in fatigue-related research, and breakthroughs will benefit the 250,000 people around the UK who suffer from ME.

■ To sponsor Ms Anfield and find out more about ME, visit her website at 7relaxing wonders.synthasite.com or menorth east.org