Thank you for visiting my new Prostate Cancer UK fundraising page. In the last 11 years I have managed to raise over £22000 for different causes by completing various treks and long distance walks - each time setting myself new personal and physical challenges. 

So here I am again after a rest last year, but equally determined to challenge myself again and raise more money for a charity that I am passionate about by "walking-for-a-cause" and pushing myself out of my comfort zone in the process. 

This year I am joining an ex-work colleague, Jacek Plewa, and his brother Tomasz in Nepal at the end of April to trek for 17 days in the Himalayas via Gokyo Lakes, Cho La pass and Everest Base Camp. We will cover approximately 180km during this time and will start at 2800m rising to an altitude of around 5500m at the highest point. We will start and finish at Lukla airport (this is apparently one of the hardest airports in the world to fly into!!!) The biggest challenges for me will be coping with the high altitude and safely negotiating some of the more exposed passes and paths which will certainly test my fear of heights and steep drops to the full.

In reality I will be walking for 2 causes, my own chosen charity Prostate Cancer UK, and the Plewa Foundation which has been set up by Jacek and Tomasz to raise money to provide education support to underprivileged children in Africa, in particular Kenya working with the Nasio Trust. I will be making a significant personal donation to the Plewa Foundation and am more than happy for any of my own supporters to donate to that charity rather than (or as well as!) mine, if they wish to. To learn more about this you can visit Jacek's fundraising page at the following link:

https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/JacekPlewa

We are all self funding the trek (it is not cheap!!) and all of the money we raise will go to our charities.

I am in training already, not entirely sure how to best protect myself against altitude sickness, but making sure I do plenty of general fitness, hillwalking and even some trail running (maybe future challenge hint?)

As ever I am enormously grateful for every bit of support and most importantly donations to Prostate Cancer UK to help to fund ongoing research into diagnosis and treatment of the disease and to continue to promote awareness of its symptoms. Research is advancing and treatments are improving but even more resource is needed to find cost effective ways of making more accurate diagnosis which will eventually enable routine, reliable prostate cancer screening. The fact remains that 1 in 8 men in the UK will get prostate cancer so every penny I can raise will help to save lives.

Please donate as much as you can to help. Thank you again.

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving - they'll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they'll send your money directly to the charity. So it's the most efficient way to donate - saving time and cutting costs for the charity.