Brockenhurst fundraisers walk from Land's End to John O'Groats to support Oakhaven Hospice

CHARITY fundraisers over-came extreme heat, angry cows and bouts of Covid to walk the length of the UK from Land’s End to John O’Groats.

Kevin and Janet McCann, from Brockenhurst, took on the challenge to raise funds for Oakhaven Hospice in Pennington.

The retired teachers took 69 days to walk from one end of the country to the other but were delayed by 10 days after they both contracted Covid.

Janet (63), who used to work at Forest Park special school in Totton, said: “We trained and prepared for this for a year. There’s no set route so it takes a long time to plan but we both really enjoyed it.

“There was not a morning I woke up along the way and didn’t want to walk, although we did find some paths closed and had to contend with a field of angry cows at one point.

“We did this to show our support for Oakhaven Hospice because it supports so many people in the community.”

Kevin, who turned 64 on 6th August, the day the couple reached John O’Groats, said: “We set off in May and we would walk for nine days out of 10.

“We would take the 10th day off to do laundry and confirm our forward accommodation bookings.

“With about two weeks left to go in the challenge, we both got Covid.

“We were at Fort William, north of Glasgow, and we didn’t want to walk into Scotland and leave a trail of Covid in our wake, so we took two weeks off.

“We waited 10 days until we tested negative for Covid before setting off again.

“It was nowhere near as bad for us as it has been for some people, but it still knocked us about a bit.”

Janet said: “We got ourselves together and we went back to reworking our route a little.

“We didn’t want to make a big thing of it and we didn’t want Covid to overtake our walk – this was a bigger adventure than that.”

Kevin, a former further and higher education deputy head teacher, added: “For us this whole journey was more about how beautiful the scenery was and how nice the people were along the way.

“Cornwall and the Lake District are lovely but northern Scotland is absolutely stunning.

“We hardly saw anyone while we were there, it is so remote and isolated and the scenery is breathtaking.

“We had some tough days: we were doing 20 miles a day on average, carrying all our kit with no luxuries, and the heat was quite extreme at times.

“But we walked 1,028 miles in 69 days with no injuries and no blisters and we loved it.”

The couple’s trek has so far raised £1,100 for Oakhaven Hospice.

To make a donation visit www.justgiving.com/fundraising/janetandkevinsverybigwalk