Xuelin and I met through my first major walk in 2011. The walk was to highlight the Olympic truce for London 2012. It was an incredible journey of nearly 3000 miles through 16 countries taking ten months to complete. 

When we arrived back into London we were married in the Houses of Parliament on the day the Olympic truce came into effect (20 July 2012). 

On that day we set up a charity The Walk for Peace Foundation and pledged to do a walk every year as long as we were able to promote peace and friendship and raise funds to help child victims of war and conflict. 

Seven years later and we have completed 8 further walks taking our total to 8828 miles and Xuelin has raised £920,000 for charities such as The Red Cross, UNICEF, Save the Children, The Prince's Trust and this year we are raising funds for War Child.

Our walk this year is a continuation of a walk in China in 2015 when we set off from Beijing to walk, over a number of stages, to Hong Kong. So far we have reached Hangzhou, just over half way, with 1050 miles complete. This year we hope to add another 310 miles to that journey and reach Wenzhou. 

More importantly, we hope to raise around £80,000 for charities supporting children and young people in China which would take the total funds raised through our walks to £1 million. 

Most of these funds will come from Chinese supporters for Chinese charities, but we wanted to provide an opportunity for UK based friends to support us in a tax efficient way and we have chosen the wonderful charity--War Child as our UK partner for this years walk. 

We are incredibly grateful for the generosity of friends, family, supporters and strangers. Together we are making a difference for good in a world that is in so much need. 

Thank you for your interest and support. You can track our progress with the walk on www.walkforpeace.eu from Monday 19 August to Wednesday 18 September.