Hiking 429km for the Ectopic Pregnancy Trust! Exciting Facts about the Pennine Way!

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We can't wait to start the challenge of hiking 429km (268 miles) along the 'Pennine Way' for the Ectopic Pregnancy Trust, from England into Scotland starting on Sunday 27 April 2008. We have recently discovered that the Pennine Way has a total ascent of about 32,000ft - with Everest standing at 29,000ft, this is really going to be a major challenge!! The hike will take us three weeks to complete and we are hoping to raise up to £10,000 (or more) for the charity, to help support the extremely hard work it does to provide emotional support and information to women and their families who have suffered the effects of this life threatening condition. Very sadly women are still losing their lives to this condition and the charity strives to help prevent unnecessary deaths from this devastating condition. After we sadly experienced a devastating ectopic pregnancy in June 2007, we decided to try and turn our traumatic experiences into something positive by hiking 429km along the Pennine Way to raise money for the charity. Please follow our journey which starts on Saturday 27 April and finishes on Saturday 17 May 2008. We will be writing our diaries and adding our photos as we venture from England into Scotland.

Here are some interesting facts about the Pennine Way national trail. It first opened on 24 April 1965.

The route boasts some of the highest and longest attractions in England:-

- The highest waterfall (Highforce in Teesdale)
- The highest road (Great Dun Fell)
- The highest inn (Tan Hill Inn)
- The highest market town (Alston)
- The longest canal (the Leeds and Liverpool canal)
- The highest, deepest and longest canal tunnel (the Standedge Tunnel)
- The highest narrow gauge railway (South Tynedale Railway)

The trail passes through the Peak District National Park, the South Pennine Moors, the best of the Yorkshire Dales (including one of the famous Three Peaks and beautiful Swaledale), the stunning High Cup Nick valley, tranquil Teesdale and the North Pennines, the history-rich Hadrian's Wall, on through to Northumberland and the windswept Cheviot Hills, before finishing in the Scottish borders. The Pennine Way is both a high-level route and a wilderness walk, which traverses some of the wildest and most remote upland terrain in the country. Alfred Wainwright, a famous hiker, who spent many months hiking the Pennine Way, described the walk as 'the experience of a lifetime, which is not to say that it offers you continuous enjoyment. It is a tough, bruising walk and the compensations are few.'

In view of Wainwright's views on the walk, he decided to leave a £15,000 tab behind the bar at the Border Hotel in Kirk Yetholm, Scotland, so that everyone who completed the 429km trail could be rewarded with a free pint of beer at the finishing point. However, the tab he put behind the bar has now run out and so a local Scottish brewery now sponsors the bar tab to continue the tradition set by Wainwright. Pennine Way here we come!

If you would like to support us in our fundraising effort and to read more about our ectopic pregnancy story, please go to www.ectopic.org.uk/fundraising/?p=46. Thank you so much! Lavinia and Steve Burch

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Photos

Lavinia and Steve Burch looking forward with excitement to hiking the Pennine Way on 27 April 2008 to raise money for the Ectopic Pregnancy Trust
www.ectopic.org.uk/fundraising/?p=46

The Pennine Way - Route Map
This is the route that we will be following along the Pennine Way.