Ursula Martin completes 5,000-mile Ukraine to Wales walk

A woman has completed her 5,000-mile walk from Ukraine to Wales

Ursula Martin arrived back in Llanidloes, Powys, on Sunday - nearly three years after setting off from the Ukrainian capital Kiev.

The trek was to raise awareness of ovarian cancer, which she was diagnosed with 10 years ago.

At the time or her diagnosis, she was due to walk back to the UK after kayaking the length of the River Danube which runs from Germany to Romania.

"I ended up in Bulgaria about to walk back to Britain, and I got ovarian cancer," she said.

"I wasn't ready to go back and do the big tough journeys so I did a 3,500 mile walk in Wales which was very much a 'symptoms of ovarian cancer awareness raising journey'.

"Then I had this sense of 'where was I, what was I doing?', and I was about to walk across Europe - I just wanted to finish what I started."

Ms Martin decided to start from Ukraine, which she describes as "Europe plus one" as it is on the edge of the continent - but then the pandemic hit.

"It knocked me sideways.

"The immediate thing was 'wherever you are you need to go home and stay there', and when you haven't got a home and you're in a foreign country that was such a shock."

Ms Martin appealed for help from friends and family for places to stay.

"I wound up in a friend's sister's holiday home in the south of France for that first big lockdown last March, for about 90 days.

"Then I just walked where I could then stopped again if the country I was in had another lockdown, so it was just this cat and mouse game of walking where I should then stopping.

"It never felt like I should go home because I'd just be facing the pandemic in a different place. I'm really glad I did it.

"I was on lockdown for about six months of the last year, I would have finished about last December I think if it hadn't been for the pandemic.

"The actual entry to Wales just felt really familiar and normal, it's been so great seeing everyone, but it just feels really normal... like when you see good friends and go straight back into the swing of things.

"I couldn't sleep well last night because of the adrenaline, and my feet were hurting because I walked quite hard yesterday.

"When I woke up this morning I had this flash of 'where am I walking today, where do I have to get to?'. It's going to happen for a few days before I remember I don't have to walk I think, that there's no journey to continue."

Ms Martin said she got through seven or eight pairs of boots along the way.

"Mostly the soles just wear down before the uppers have chance to crack or anything."

And she described the reception on returning to Llanidloes as "incredible".

"I imagined this moment and it's everything I thought it would be.

"It's been a growth adventure, growth of strength and spirit. I know myself so much better. It's been wonderful."

But this will not be the end of Ms Martin's walks.

In January, she will do a "mini-challenge" from John O'Groats to Land's End to mark the 10-year anniversary of her ovarian cancer.