I'm walking for charity (Meningitis UK)

As some of you may know, my eldest daughter caught meningitis in late October 2010, a month after her 18th birthday, and nearly died. She underwent emergency neurosurgery at Hull Royal Informary which left her completely paralysed and on a ventilator. She spent seven weeks in Hull Royal Infirmary Intensive Care Unit, nine weeks in York District Hospital High Dependency Unit (where she and the nursing team successfully weaned her off the ventilator and she first showed some small ability to move her extremities) and twenty two weeks in the Spinal Injuries Unit at Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield. She returned home at the end of July 2011. She is still recovering and how far the recovery will progress is unknown. She's back at college where she has just completed the first year of two A levels and is making plans for University attendance.

From the very beginning of her recovery she has been determined to raise awareness of meningitis and encouraged friends and family to actively support Meningitis UK, the UK charity that funds research in to vaccines to prevent the disease.

So this weekend myself and five friends (who happen to be gamers) are heading to St Bees on the Cumbrian coast in the North West of England. On Sunday 7th July we will dip our boots in the Irish Sea, pick up a pebble and start walking. We have 12 days to cover approximately 192 miles, through the towering mountains of the Lake District, the wild bogs of the Pennines / Northern Dales and the rolling moorland of the North Yorkshire Moors, before we reach Robin Hood's Bay on the North Yorkshire Coast and dip our boots in the North Sea.

Our Just Giving page, if any of you feel inspired by our madness to donate to a worthy cause is here: The York Crew is fundraising for Meningitis UK

Thank you for reading.

Cheers,

Nick

Thanks for sharing your story. I hugged my twin girls after reading it.

And good luck on your walk!

Day One: no one injured, yay! No ice creams in Cleator (shop was shut by the time we got there), boo! Climbing Dent Fell in the blazing sun, definite boo! Warren, the affable Australian school bus driver who has come half way round the world to walk the Coast to Coast and whom we keep leapfrogging throughout today, definite yay.

16 miles down, 176 to go...

Cheers,

Nick

That's an amazing story Nick, your entire family are in our prayers. If you have access to a GPS, could you post the coordinates you are at when you end a day of travel? Assuming you have internet access, so we can follow your journey on Google Maps or the like? I would love to "tag-a-long".

Rod

Good luck with it all, let us know how it's going.

That's an amazing story Nick, your entire family are in our prayers. If you have access to a GPS, could you post the coordinates you are at when you end a day of travel? Assuming you have internet access, so we can follow your journey on Google Maps or the like? I would love to "tag-a-long".

Rod

Sadly, reliable Internet has been one of the only major issues - hence this is the first post since Day 1! We're still going, roasted by record temperatures but therefore blessed that some notorious bogs along the route (High Street in the Lake District, Nine Standards Rigg in the Pennines) have been exceptionally dry.

I'll try to get copies of the GPS traces of what we walked, as well as copies of the routes we had PLANNED (there have been some variations!) and photos up when I'm home.

~140 Miles done, some 50 to go over the next three days...

Cheers,

Nick