A PAIR of best friends hope the Queen has got the kettle on when they finish their massive walk from Barnsley to Buckingham Palace next week.
Paul Campbell, 43 and Gavin Swallow, 40, set off on Monday and are hoping to make the 172 mile trek by next Friday.
It means they have an average of 34.4 miles to cover each day, with more than 12 hours of walking.
They are taking on the challenge to raise money for Neurocare, the Barnsley Hospital Charity, Mind, the Richmond Fellowship and Shelter.
Paul, from Towngate, Silkstone, is sales director at vehicle and web design company Effective Group.
He said: “Mental health charities are close to both of us because of people we know. And Shelter is because you now see a lot more homeless people when you are walking around Barnsley than you used to, it is becoming a real problem in this county.
“The Barnsley Hospital Charity is because they when my son was born five years ago he was in intensive care at Barnsley and they were fantastic.
“I’ve known Gav since the mid-90s and I keep joking that he will be bored of me after five minutes. We have a first class train ticket booked for the way back home.”
The pair have been training in the run up to the walk by taking on increasingly long walking tasks.
“I do a lot of driving and you don’t realise just how many roads don’t have a footpath next to them until you are walking alongside traffic. We have raised about a grand so far but we are hoping to keep going during the walk too.”
The pair are walking to Barnsley, Nottingham, Leicester, Northampton, Luton and then to London.
Gavin, from Shire Oak Drive, Elsecar, runs vehicle graphics specialist Swallow Applications.
He said the challenge will be as mentally challenging as it will be physically.
“I don’t care how prepared we might be, the feeling is we aren’t quite prepared enough,” Gavin said.
“Walking seems straightforward but when you are doing it for ten to 12 hours a day it takes a toll. So we are hoping to get as much encouragement as possible on social media and otherwise to distract us from the pain and the monotony.
“We are hoping Liz will have the kettle on by the time we get to the palace for us. But we are going to take it one step at a time.
“We will be keeping our social media updated with how we get on and try and drum up some support and donations for the cause.”
You can follow Paul and Gavin on Twitter at @paulctweets and @gavswallow77. Their fundraising page can be found here.
