Former Keswick mayor Alan Dunn was due to complete his epic walking tour of Cumbria yesterday having visited all 20 of the county’s rugby union clubs.
To date he has raised more than £4,700 of his £6,000 target to help fund Keswick Rugby Club’s £2m-plus Big Build project for a new clubhouse.
Alan said that while he had never been a rugby player, he had been a big supporter for many years and has also carried out chauffeuring duties, while his wife, Heather, has been a first aider at the club for 23 years.
Their sons, Mark, Ian and John (Hine) all played rugby – with John being Keswick club captain for four years – while their daughter, Katie, is a coach at the club, and their granddaughter Claudia, now 15, plays for the under 16 Falcons who have just won the county cup, having been unbeaten all season.
Alan told the Reminder: “I have done a few walks in the past. I’ve done a 50-mile walk in a day and I’ve done Route 66 on the A66.
“So I thought if I could walk the new Cumbria coastal path, which has just been opened up, I thought I could do that from Carlisle down to the south of the county.”
But to give it more a rugby edge, it was decided that he would walk to all the clubs in the county – which would add about an extra 150 miles.
Alan said it turned into a 400-mile tour of Cumbria, with a total of 259 miles walked over the course of 26 days. In total, there were also 933 miles travelled in a car, 289 miles on the bus and 242 miles by train.
Alan, who was accompanied for half of the time by Heather, said they started the challenge on Tuesday, May 7, at Kirkby Lonsdale and walked to Alan’s home town of Kendal.
From Kendal, Alan said it was a long way up to Upper Eden at Kirkby Stephen, so they broke that up in two and went to Tebay and then went home.
Then they came back the next day and went from Tebay to Kirkby Stephen. The next stop was then Penrith, and that was completed in a two-day stretch.
From there it was over to Creighton and Carlisle before heading out to Wigton and Silloth. Next up was Aspatria, Cockermouth, Workington, Whitehaven, St Benedicts, Egremont and Millom.
From Millom the next stop was Hawcoat Park, then Barrow, Windermere and Ambleside.
On Thursday, Heather and Alan set off from Threlkeld and walked along the railway line where they were joined by some of some under 16 and under 14 girls’ rugby players.
They then walked through Keswick with the girls, down to Keswick Rugby Club, where they were due to be met by the president Tim Green and other well-wishers.
He said there had been a great number of highlights, with people giving them bits of money, and there were other things which stuck in the mind like “being bitten death by midges and nettles” and having to negotiate fields with cows in.
“It wasn’t all lovely,” but he said it had been quite an adventure.
“We have seen some places and lots of things that you would never see normally. I saw loads of parts (of the county) I had never seen before.”
One sight in particular which stood out was The Green at Millom, which, Alan explained, was a man-made bund which stretches from the town to a station called Green Lane, for about three miles.
“I have never seen anything like it,” said Alan, who moved to Keswick in 1980.
Of the Big Build project, which is already progressing apace with the roof already in place, Alan said a very generous benefactor had agreed to match fund what the club were able to raise up to a maximum of £100,000.
