Water walkers go the extra mile (and many more!) to raise over £7k

Coniston Water is not only one of the most spectacular of the Lake District lakes… it’s also the fifth largest by area: five miles long and half a mile wide. That makes walking the 14 miles around it once no mean feat. 

Now imagine doing it multiple times over two days… 

That was the challenge that 11 BAS supporters from Chipping Sodbury set themselves to support our Charity Walk. Between them, they aimed to walk 600km over two days. 

Led by Kevin Hodge, there were 11 walkers in a group that totalled around 15 together. 

Kev's wife Suz suffered a stroke a few years ago and, with the help of a strong family and good friends – plus support from Bristol After Stroke - she is making a steady recovery and adapting to life after stroke. 

And those family and friends set about the challenge of raising £5,000 to support our work to help others like Susan: getting permission to use Coniston, organising routes and food stops, planning for all eventualities and then getting through the grind of walking round the lake three or four times a day and camping overnight until the target was reached.

Over 350km was completed on day 1, Saturday September 13th with the remainder on Sunday. 

Five of the walkers managed to complete over 60 km over the two days. That’s like walking three half marathons but over some difficult terrain: it takes long hours and is painful. There were blisters and exhaustion, not helped by terrible weather with rain and high winds deluging the teams - especially overnight. 

Despite all of that, spirits remained very high throughout… spurred on by the fund raising on Just Giving climbing rapidly. In the end, the team totalled 621 kilometres – 385 of your English miles - and then walked to the pub!

And was it successful? Kev and his friends set out to raise an ambitious £5,000. Currently, excluding Gift Aid, the total is £7,450!

So thank you and well done, Team Hodge and the Coniston Crew! A big shout to them all: Deb, Rache, Sarah, Nicky, Max, Luke, Alan, Carol, Janice, Alex, Simon, Suz and (of course!) Kev himself.