We are Lavinia and Steve Burch. In May of 2008, we set out on a highly daunting 429km (268 miles) hike along the Pennine Way, the oldest and second longest national trail in Great Britain, to raise money for the charity - The Ectopic Pregnancy Trust (www.ectopic.org.uk/fundraising/?p=46), starting on Sunday 27 April 2008, after Lavinia very sadly nearly lost her life to an ectopic pregnancy in July 2007. The Ectopic Pregnancy Trust was established in 1998, in memory of Sophie Winter, who sadly lost her life due to a misdiagnosis of her ectopic pregnancy. The charity seeks to raise awareness of ectopic pregnancy amongst women of childbearing age, the medical profession and the general public. The charity is striving to prevent unnecessary deaths due to ectopic pregnancy, provide emotional support and information for women and their families, and to support research into the underlying causes, treatment and prevention of the condition. Ectopic pregnancy affects one in 80 pregnancies in the UK and is a life-threatening condition, with at least 32,000 hospital admissions a year and very sadly women are still losing their lives to the condition.

TOTAL SPONSORSHIP RAISED TO DATE FOR THE ECTOPIC PREGNANCY TRUST - £11,409.00 (as at 22 September 2008) Made up of: e-fundraising account - £3,846.00, cheques/cash - £7,217.00 and we raised £346.00 from the sale of raffle tickets and the Trust's 10th birthday pin badges at our celebration party on Friday 30 May. KPMG, Steve's employer have very kindly donated an amazing £5,250.00 towards our fundraising effort, for which we are enormously grateful. Thank you so much for all of your support and kind donations. It means so much to us both. With some of the money we raised the Ectopic Pregnancy Trust will be holding a special training day on the Management of Early Pregnancy for doctors, nurses and radiologists in London in April 2009. We are extremely pleased that the money raised is being used in such a fantastic way, to help raise awareness amongst the medical profession of this life-threatening condition and help to save lives.

The Ectopic Pregnancy Trust needs to raise a minimum of £92,000 every year, to provide the excellent service and support that they do for women and their families in the UK. They are a well deserving charity that receives no Government funding. The majority of their funding comes from personal donations and fundraising activities - like ours. £100 pays for a days' IT support to maintain their website information and forum pages, £20 enables them to run their dedicated helpline for an hour and £5 allows them to send out 7 leaflets for free for women and their families who request them. So all of your generous donations really does help to support this niche charity.

Our Fundraising Hike: We commenced our hike in Edale, Peak District, Derbyshire, on 27 April and finished 21 days later, rather stiff-legged, in Kirk Yetholm, Scotland. It was an amazing experience to hike from England into Scotland, seeing the ever changing landscapes, which were surprisingly often so beautiful and breathtaking. We did endure lots of boggy sections and wet socks and boots, but the journey was a memory that will be us with for the rest of our lives. At the end of the 429km hiking trail, the Border Hotel in Scotland, provided us with a complimentary pint - which was very refreshing and rewarding! Hiking is one of our passions, so we were very excited and felt honoured to be able to do something we love to help raise money for the Ectopic Pregnancy Trust, after Lavinia suffered a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy in June 2007 and nearly lost her life. Due to complications following the ectopic pregnancy Lavinia has undergone four operations in a very short space of time between June 2007 and January 2008 - two of them involving major surgery; but with her endless spirit and drive she was determined to recover and be ready to hike the Pennine Way. Our motto for the fundraising hike was 'Remembering the past, looking to the future...'

Both of us are very lucky to have travelled extensively across the world and hiked some of the world's finest and most famous treks. Some of our most memorable previous hikes are:-

- The Lycian Way, the Taurus Mountains, Turkey - The Great Wall of China - The West Highland Way, Scotland
- The Inca Trail, Peru - Coast to Coast, Lake District, England - Torres del Paine 'W Trek', Chile
- Queen Charlotte Track, New Zealand - Ben Nevis, Scotland - Longji Mountains, Southern China
- Indian Himalayas, Mcleod Ganj, Northern India - Tongariro Crossing, New Zealand - Routeburn Track, New Zealand
- The Milford Track, New Zealand - The Lairig Ghru, Cairngorms, Scotland - Helvellyn, Lake District, England

However, the Pennine Way was our most challenging and longest hike to date, the highest point of the trail was a heady 2,930 feet. The Pennine Way is renowned as being one of the toughest and most demanding long distance trails in Britain. We trained by working out in the gym and hiking in the hills around Kent and Surrey, but also hiked in the stunning mountains of the Lake District (one of our favourite hiking destinations) and the Isle of Skye, in Scotland, to increase our hiking stamina. We were overjoyed that friends joined us at Malham Tarn to hike up to Pen-y-Ghent and onto our next's night's stay. Steve's brother Malcolm joined us at Hadrian's Wall on day 17, to hike the final 101km (63 miles) with us - it was so great to have their support!

If you would like to see some of our diary entries, photos and videos as we hiked along the Pennine Way and the celebration party which we held to say thank you to our family and friends for their support, please keep scrolling down to see our entries below. At our party, we were incredibly lucky and honoured to be joined by the very funny comedian Rob Brydon, Uncle Bryn from Gavin and Stacey. Rob Brydon did a fantastic job of entertaining our guests and hosting the evening's raffle and we are very grateful that he gave his support to the charity.

If you would like to support the Ectopic Pregnancy Trust and the hard work that they do in helping to save lives, you can donate to the charity and read more about their work by going to www.ectopic.org.uk Many thanks for your support and to the Ectopic Pregnancy Trust, we will always treasure the immense and unending care you have given us, Lavinia and Steve.

Please continue scrolling down to see our blog entries below - our first entry was on 30 December 2007 and the last is May 2008.

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