Walking 100km for Endo along the Northern Saints Trails of Life and Love
Following the success of fundraising for Bright Red last year using the Just Giving page, SID decided to repeat the use of Just Giving and fundraise for Endometriosis UK by walking 100km, which also supported the Centenary focus. Joint Presidents Sue Percival and Geraldine Hudson chose to walk two of the Northern Saints Trails, The Way of Life (Gainford to Durham) and The Way of Love (Durham to Hartlepool) which together amounted to 100km. Each of the trails is divided into 4 sections, so 8 in total. Sue and Geraldine completed over 100km over 4 weeks and were joined by Vyvyenne Mack and Janet Hattle on some of the trails and Alison Lacey helped with some chauffeuring to some of the starts.
Saturday 13th November – What a lovely day for the first leg of our Northern Saints Walk of Life from Gainford to West Auckland. We walked 14.28Km on some beautiful tracks and through several pretty villages.
Saturday 20th November – Blessed with another beautiful warm sunny day we covered 14.96Km from West Auckland to Bishop Auckland. There were a few tricky paths to negotiate and deciphering the route directions was challenging at times! Still lots of autumnal colours and the stretch along the River Wear, where we saw a kingfisher and heron, was looking beautiful. We also passed Escomb Church, the oldest most complete Saxon church in England.
Tuesday 23rd November – Another lovely day, although a lot colder. The walk went from Bishop Auckland Castle through the Park and then along the Auckland Way. After trudging through a very muddy field we had to find an alternative route around Whitworth Hall as it was closed. All good though as we got back to the allotted Northern Saints route around Spennymoor and then through woods to our finish in Tudhoe Village having walked 12.92Km.
Tuesday 30th November – The walk today was from Tudhoe to Durham. We covered 13Km and felt very pleased with ourselves, as instead of taking an alternative route towards the end of the walk, we climbed the 224 Steps of Doom to the top of Mount Joy and soon after we were rewarded with a wonderful view of Durham Cathedral. So ends our first Northern Saints Trail of Life and we are now half way through our challenge to cover 100km!
Saturday 4th December – We set off from Durham on the first section of The Way of Love, Durham to Cassop. The weather was mixed with several showers, but we also had some sunshine. We discovered some new footpaths, which neither of us had trodden on before, but we also found mud, lots of it! Our total was 15.4Km.
Wednesday 8th December – a shorter walk today, 8.8Km. We set off in heavy rain from Kelloe and followed two lovely mineral lines. Lucky for us the rain eased up and we even saw some blue sky and sunshine as we approached our finishing point in Trimdon.
Friday 10th December – We had a sunny day for our longest walk so far of 17.87Km from Trimdon to Hart. Another lovely varied walk with long stretches along former mineral lines and beautiful if not challenging routes, due to the sodden ground and fallen trees, through Hesledon and Nesbit Denes.
Wednesday 15th December – The final section of the Northern Saints Trail for the Way of Love was from Hart to Hartlepool Headland, following some of the coastal footpath. We covered 9.96Km making our total 107.19Km.
We have raised £1226. 25, which includes gift aid