Karen Buchanan conquers The ITEX Walk for Pepper

2007 Pepper News

On Saturday 9 June 2007, Pepper Administrator Karen Buchanan with friends and family entered a most demanding charity walk around the complete coastline of Guernsey in the Channel Islands, almost 40 miles in a day, and all in aid of Pepper.

Having arrived in Guernsey on the Friday morning spending a leisurely day on the beach in glorious sunshine, it was early to bed that night, as they had to be up at 3.30am in order to be at St. Peter Port to register to start by 4.30am. Their 5.10am departure took place in extremely foggy conditions, which wasn’t a very encouraging start.

According to Karen, the southeast and south of the island were extremely uncivilised in terms of walking! To say there were steep cliff climbs is putting it mildly. The fog got denser and heavier and the inclines got steeper. There was just a never ending route of stone steps cut into the cliff paths - it was endless and it was very, very difficult to keep motivated because of the sheer hard work involved in putting one foot in front of the other as some of the steps were a good foot or more high.

It took them 6 hours to cover the 16 miles section of the cliff paths and at one point they were a good 250 feet above sea level. Karen knew it was high when the seagulls were circling on thermals beneath us!

Karen commented it was a shame the walkers were not able to appreciate the stunning scenery along the cliffs because of the fog, but from a walking point of view it was good that it wasn't so sunny as they were sweating buckets in the fog and drizzle!

The west and north of the island apparently was a doddle after the cliff walks and the beaches and the scenery which were really beautiful.

They had about 7 checkpoints that they had to reach at designated times, which they managed and made time up on the flat which was very encouraging and some 14.5 hours after they started, they arrived back in St Peter Port at 7.45 pm.

Its not surprising they ached everywhere, bones, joints, muscles, not to mention sunburned noses, arms and ankles, but more importantly, having survived the journey on bananas, orange juice, water, crisps, energy bars, good humour, a bit of yelling and sheer bloody mindedness, they managed to raise an impressive £1146.54 for Pepper.

Would they do it again – Karen says “No way”! Is she chuffed she did it this time – “You bet” – and so say all of us at Pepper! A huge thank you Karen and well done.