Selby's Blue Wilson walks the UK coastline

Blue, 48, who is the caretaker and groundskeeper for Selby Town Council, reached the milestone when she got to Clacton-on-Sea in Essex.

“So far I have walked 1,038.77 miles in 64 days and have reached as far south as Langenhoe in Essex and as far north as Elie in Fife, Scotland,” she posted, in her most recent blog.

“I got to my first thousand miles at Clacton-On-Sea right by the pier.”

Blue, who set out on her marathon trek late last year, is doing the walk in stages during her holidays, because while her three step-children are grown up, she still has her job, and her mum to look after. One holiday she’ll head north then, for a change of scenery, on the next holiday she’ll head south - always picking up where she left off on the last stage of her journey.

Supplied (Image: Supplied)

So far she has covered just about the entire east coast of England, from Essex in the south all the way up to Fife in Scotland.

She’ll be heading back to Fife later this month for the next stage of her walk, when she hopes to walk up the east coast of Scotland to a point north of Aberdeen.

The walking isn’t always easy, she admits - there isn’t a nice, smooth footpath that runs along the entire coastline. Sometimes it’s trackless marsh, or deep inlets that she can’t cross. Occasionally she has to cut inland to find a way.

But always the lure of the coast draws her back.

She got the bug for walking the coast;line when she did the Cleveland Way a few years ago.

“I was so gobsmacked by the scenery of the coast that I thought: I want to continue!” she said. “I wanted to do the whole country.”

A thousand miles might sound a long way - and reaching the milestone meant a lot, Blue said. “It makes the wak feel more achievable!” But, with estimates of the full length of the UK coastline ranging from from 7,000 to 19,000 miles (depending on how many inlets you follow and how many islands you walk around), she admits she has some way to go yet.

It could, in fact, take far more than the five years she first envisaged, she reckons.

But she’s in no hurry. And she’s doing it for a good cause as well as for the sea air and the views.

Blue is raising money for Surfers Against Sewage and marine conservation charity Sea Changers. She’s already raised more than £1,300 - and hopes that by the time she finishes her epic trek that could be as high as £20,000...

To follow Blue’s blog, visit her Blue-Wilson-Walks-The-UK-Coastline page on Facebook.

To make a donation, visit her just Just Giving page