A RETIRED York vicar and her husband have reached their target of raising £10,000 for their sponsored walk from Land’s End to John O’Groats.

The Rev Nancy Eckersley, 60, former vicar of Heslington, and her husband, John, 68, are delighted to have reached their target.

It means a total of £45,000 will be used to help pay for clean water supplies and farming improvements in Sierra Leone as part of a Christian Aid Partnership.

Under the terms of the partnership every £1 raised by Christian Aid is match-funded with £3.50 from the European Union.

Mr and Mrs Eckersley began the 1,280-mile trek at the Cornish headland at the beginning of April.

They said: “The appeal for the farming and clean water project in Sierra Leone has reached its £10,000 target.

“This is wonderful news and we thank very much all those who have generously given donations, sponsoring us on our Land’s End to John O’Groats walk, so that this has been achieved.

“Donations are still coming in and money over and above the £10,000 already given will also go to Sierra Leone.”

At the time of writing, Nancy and John were on the final leg of their journey through Scotland.

The Great Glen Way takes them over to Inverness and then the final section follows the east Scottish coast to John O’Groats.

When they passed through York, the couple stopped at Badger Hill and Archbishop Holgate schools to update pupils on their adventures on the trek so far.

For more information about their progress and to donate to the Just Giving page visit johneckersley.wordpress.com Sierra Leone, a small West African state, is about the same size and has about the same population as Scotland. Sierra Leone suffered a brutal civil war in 2002 and is one of the poorest countries on earth – life expectancy is only 47 years and only 50 per cent of the population have safe drinking water.

It is ranked 180 out of 182 nations according to the UN Human Development Index.