Hello everybody, thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page, this is my story.

I must have been cycling for 4 hours or more along the Stuart Highway since leaving Larrimah in temperatures of 100 degrees, so when a silver coloured jeep pulled up off the highway just ahead of me and a friendly bronzed face suddenly appeared through the wound down window and shouted "Bet you could do with a cold one mate" I gladly accepted.  That was the first time I ever met Dean, he was from Perth in Western Australia and like me was touring the Australian continent, only he was doing it the sensible way in an air conditioned 4x4 jeep.  We got on well from the start and ended up doing quite a bit of travelling together, eventually after many adventures Dean headed back to Perth and I to Alice Springs to resume my crossing of the continent.  Six months later I found myself back in England wondering what to do next when I got a long distance phone call from Dean's brother in Perth with the shocking news that Dean had sadly lost his battle with cancer and had died peacefully at home a few days ago. This terrible news from Kym, Dean's brother, really knocked me sideways as I had no idea that Dean was ill; during all the time we had spent together in Australia he had never mentioned it, not once.  Kym later told me that Dean knew he was terminally ill and had wanted to see Australia before he died.  This was my first real experience of losing a close friend to cancer.  Dean was just 20 years old when he died in 1990.

Over the years I have lost both family and close friends to cancer and so I thought I should like to do this walk in memory of them and raise funds for Macmillan Cancer Support.  Most of us will be affected by cancer at some point in our lives and Macmillan need our help to continue to provide support and care services to all those affected by cancer.

So, at 10am on Sunday, 24 May 2015 I shall take my first few rather faltering steps along the South West Coast Path as I begin my big hike from Cape Cornwall to Cape Wrath, Highland, Scotland a distance of about 1542 miles that will take me somewhere in the region of 4 and a half months to complete, and yes, I intend to walk every single step of the way!

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Thank you very much indeed for your kind donation and for supporting Cape2Cape and Macmillan Cancer Support.

Best wishes

Alistair MacNichol