Former lawyer Karen Penny is due to complete a hike around Jersey this weekend as part of a charity fundraising crusade covering the entire coastline of the British Isles.
The plural ‘isles’ is definitely appropriate, with Ms Penny aiming to leave no land mass uncovered, including Shetland, the Isles of Scilly, the Hebrides, Anglesey and, of course, the Channel Islands.
Jersey is the final leg of the Channel Islands’ section of the walk, which has so far featured torrential rain in Guernsey, the idyllic surrounds of Shell Beach in Herm and a search for blonde hedgehogs in Alderney.
‘You couldn’t finish a walk like this without coming to the Channel Islands, and the welcome has been fantastic from everyone I’ve met,’ she said in St Helier, while getting ready to strap on her 14kg backpack.
Ms Penny first set out from her home near Swansea on 14 January 2019, making her way round the Welsh coastline to the port of Fishguard and then crossing to Ireland, where she spent five and a half months circumnavigating the Emerald Isle.
After returning to Wales and making her way up the west coast of England and Scotland, a spanner was thrown into the works in March 2020 in the shape of a global pandemic.
‘I was in the Shetland Islands when it became obvious I’d have to stop for a while. It took me five days to get home, with help from lots of the people I’d met along the way,’ she said.
Working on logistics with her husband, Mark Faulkner, who plans her route from back home and tries to ensure daily stretches of around 15 miles, Ms Penny was able to resume her challenge last August. This time, she headed anti-clockwise from south Wales, around south-west England before the second wave of Covid-19 necessitated another pressing of the pause button in November.
Rather than being irritated at having her schedule frequently torn up, Ms Penny has maintained a positive outlook throughout, helped by her tactic of not worrying about the weather forecast.
She said: ‘You couldn’t do a walk like this without the help of kindness from people you meet, and the pandemic has made communities really look out for each other.’
The walk is raising money for Alzheimer’s Research UK, in tribute to the death of Mr Faulkner’s parents, both of whom were hit by Alzheimer’s and dementia – and has so far raised £88,000.
Today, Ms Penny is due to walk from Les Fontaines Tavern in St John to Le Braye in St Brelade, with the final stretch tomorrow taking her from Le Braye back to St Helier in time for the evening ferry to Poole.
Her final mainland stretch of the walk will resume later this month, starting at the Humber Bridge and heading north to Aberdeen before crossing back to ‘unfinished business’ in the Shetland Islands.
The aim is to finish on the small rocky outcrop of Muckle Flugga at the northernmost tip of the British Isles in October, by which time the mileometer will be close to 11,000 and the fundraising tally approaching six figures.
Anyone wanting to support Ms Penny can do so by visiting justgiving.com/fundraising/thepennyrollson.
