A Selby woman has set out on a marathon trek to walk the entire British coastline for charity.
Selby Town Council caretaker and groundskeeper Blue Wilson has already completed the first 308 miles of her trek, from Croft Bank south of Skegness to Crimdon just north of Hartlepool.
But, with estimates of the distance to be walked varying (depending on how many inlets you follow) from 7,000 to 11,000 miles, she admits she has some way to go yet.
“My 308 miles doesn’t seem much!” she admitted. “It is going to take me a while!”
In fact, it could take her several years.
Blue, 47, knows of people who are doing the entire round-the-coast walk in one go.
But, while her own three step-children are grown up, she still has her job – and her mum.
So instead, she’s going to do the walk in bits - a few days here, a week there. She estimates that to complete the whole round-the-coast trek could take her up to five years.
She’s doing it because she wants to see the whole of Britain’s coastline, she says.
A keen walker and environmentalist, she keeps fit at work, and also walks six miles every day.
In recent years, she has completed several long distance footpaths - the Yorkshire Wolds Way, the Tabular Way and the Cleveland Way.
“And when I was doing the Cleveland way I was so gobsmacked by the scenery of the coast that I thought: I want to continue!” she said. “I wanted to do the whole country.”
But if she was doing that, she decided she really ought to raise money for good causes at the same time.
In August last year, she did the Yorkshire Three Peaks challenge to raise money for the Humane Society, the international animal protection charity.
For her coast walk, though, she decided she ought to raise money for marine protection charities.
So she’s supporting Surfers Against Sewage and marine conservation charity Sea Changers.
Blue, who was born in Leeds but grew up in Hambleton, near Selby, has been a supporter of environmental causes ever since she was at school, when she would take part in Greenpeace events.
“People talk about climate change as if it is a new thing, but it isn’t!” she said.
She has set herself a target of raising £4,000 in each year of her trek - hopefully £20,000 by the time she finishes.
She'll be setting out on the next stage of her walk this week - she has managed to take three days off work.
She’ll be starting from Crimdon and heading north towards Sunderland and ‘hopefully beyond’.
“I’ll hope to do about 60 miles – though with the days getting shorter I’m not sure whether I’ll be able to do 20 miles every day,” she said.
To follow Blue’s blog, visit her Blue-Wilson-Walks-The-UK-Coastline page on Facebook.
To make a donation, visit her just Just Giving page: www.justgiving.com/team/teambluewilsonwalks
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