WALKING the 220-mile Pennine Way in two weeks represents a gruelling challenge for most but for Mark Fletcher it was merely brain food for an altogether more staggering expedition.

A former president of Sheffield University's Students Union "Fletch" as he is known to friends, hiked the route in June 2002 - but when he completed it he felt like carrying on.

It prompted him to do some research into Great Britain's other historic walkways, leading ultimately to his current challenge: to visit the lowest, the highest, the most easterly, southerly, westerly and northerly points of the British mainland….on foot.

"Doing the Pennine Way in 2002 was probably where it all started," he says.

"I felt strong both physically and mentally at the end of it and it was a real shame to end it.

"I started to look at other long paths in Britain and when I got the big maps out, I found that many of them joined up. From there I had the idea of going to the north, east, south and westerly points of England."

Knowing he would have to up sticks to take on anything that size, his horizon broadened still.

"Then I started thinking of it as an island thing. I'd not done much walking in Scotland before and the island's most westerly and northerly points are there. People sometimes think of Wales or England being furthest West but that's a misconception because weather map is often off to an angle...

"I wanted to see more of the island I was born on so I thought, well, I could walk it. I knew it would be something that no-one else would have done before."

Carrying a weight just under 25K in his rucksack, 32-year-old Fletch left Sheffield for Lowestoft on April 22nd, anticipating his 2,000-mile trek would take a little over four months.

When I caught up with him taking a rare rest day in Horton-in-Ribblesdale in the North Yorkshire Dales, he looked like he'd just been swept in from the beach, weathered and toned in equal measure by more than three months exposure to the elements. (cont.)