# 14 Take part in the Jersey Island Walk

The Jersey Island Walk has been running for many years and seemed like the ideal challenge to add to my 40@40 list. The full walk consists of a 48 mile trek around the Jersey coastline however, luckily for me, the organisers have recently introduced the Lieutenant Governor's Challenge which breaks the walk down into four sections, with one completed each year.

I signed up earlier in the year and few weeks before the big day I received a parcel in the post with a super-pink walk t-shirt in it plus a lanyard with my number on it, a lip salve and a pair of sunglasses. I also received my sponsorship form. One of the reasons for taking part in the walk was to help me achieve 40@40 activity # 15 - raise some money for charity. See here for more details about that.

This year the walk was held on Saturday 20th June and the LG walk covered the first section so we started with the rest of the walkers. Unfortunately, this meant a 3am start so the alarm was set for 1.30am! Not surprisingly I didn't get much sleep before it went off.

Ready to go

Although it was dark when we set off it wasn't long before light began to appear in the sky and we were soon compensated for our early start with some fantastic views of the coast and sun rising over Gorey Castle. Luckily the weather stayed clear and it was perfect walking weather at that time in the morning (I expect walking along the north coast in the afternoon sunshine might have been a bit more challenging!).

Seymour Tower in the distance 

On the golf course at Gorey

Nearly at the first checkpoint!

The east coast is quite nice really, isn't it!

Archirondel with St Catherine's in the distance

I completed the first stage of the walk, from Elizabeth Terminal to Longbeach carpark in about 2 and a half hours. The second stage to St Catherine's was a shorter distance and took around an hour. Not bad but by no means the fastest. The first person to complete the full distance, i.e. 48 miles, took around 7 and half hours!

Made it!

Lovely view from the finish line

It was a great experience and I managed the full distance without any problems, in fact I could have gone a bit further. Hopefully next year I can move on to section two!