UPDATE!

Congratulations to Layla and Robyn who (quite expectedly) won the race by 3 minutes and 31 seconds.  Not only did they beat us, but they beat everyone else demonstrating what awesome athletic prowess we have within our staff at the National Trust!  

The winner therefore is Sarah Baker with a guess of 3 minutes 30 seconds - nice one Sarah, enjoy your prize.  Thank you all for your support.

The Blue Mile is a new mass participation challenge event taking place in Plymouth on the weekend of 3 and 4 July.  The event is designed to get the nation immersed in our wonderful watery environment and encourage everyone to take some steps to look after it. 

The National Trust will have a presence at the event village.  We also thought it would be a good opportunity to enter a challenge team.

Two tandem kayak teams will take to the water to race against each other in a bid to become the NT Blue mile champions.  Caroline Danks and Tamsyn Butler will take on Robyn Davies and Layla Astley in a fierce battle for success.

We thought this friendly competition would provide the perfect opportunity to raise some vital funds for our outdoors work.  You can participate in the following way:

- Decide which team you think will win and by how much time (e.g. Caroline and Tamsyn by 1 minute 12 seconds).

- Sponsor us, putting your prediction in the message box.  This message will be displayed on the Justgiving page so it will be easy for us to see who has the winning guess. 

First prize is as follows:

A seaweed hot tub and coffee/tea and cake for 2 people at the Scarlet Hotel

This entitles 2 people to a complimentary cliff top, seaweed hot tub and a coffee or tea and delicious homemade cake from our bar. The prize is valid until 18th December 2010, subject to availability, please also be advised that pre-booking is essential.

The winners would be welcome to book lunch or dinner to coincide with their prize as we can easily open up a Day Account (which is payable upon departure) for them when calling to make their booking.

The Scarlet is a brand new hotel overlooking the beach at Mawgan Porth, North Cornwall.  It is a stunning place built to the highest eco standards, boasting delicious locally sourced food and the best Ayurvedic inspired spa you can imagine.  See http://www.scarlethotel.co.uk/ for more info.

The National Trust owns 340 miles of coastline in Devon and Cornwall alone, please help us to care for these inspirational places.  Our countryside and coastal sites cannot generate income in the same way that our houses and gardens do and are reliant on the generosity of our supporters to enable us to maintain the high quality conservation and access work that people have come to expect from us. 

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 and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it’s the most efficient way to donate - we raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity.

So please dig deep and donate now.