A NEWTON Abbot couple have raised more than £10,000 Bicycle and Boat navigation of Britain.

Kate and Graham Brodie completed a circumnavigation of Britain with more than 5,000 miles of cycling and more than 2,000 miles of sailing.

Kate and Graham Brodie set off from Topsham on April 16 on a trip around Britain, with Kate sailing in her 33ft yacht and Graham cycling and meeting up with the boat each day.

In 2020 Kate was diagnosed with breast cancer, she underwent treatment and during the recovery period in 2021 she acquired a new larger boat and began planning the trip of a lifetime.

Kate and Graham said: ‘The trip had several challenges with both the boat and the bicycle needing to have a few running repairs to keep them going!

‘There were also constant headwinds during the first few weeks of the trip, which we went in an anti-clockwise direction around the country.

‘During the last few days around Devon and Cornwall, there was the opportunity to meet up with several local friends and in Falmouth fellow members of the Topsham Sailing Club were there to greet Yacht Hullabaloo.’

In Plymouth there was a small reception at the Royal Plymouth Corinthian Yacht club, and on the penultimate day in Torquay several members of the local cycling club came down to the harbour to greet them.

The highlight of the trip for Kate was an escort of dolphins around Land’s End for over an hour, whilst for Graham the best parts were cycling the quiet rolling hills of Galloway, and the puffins at Westray.

More than 39 days of the trip was spent in Scotland, taking in the Orkney Islands, Shetland Islands, the Outer Hebrides and some of the Small Isles.

The couple said: ‘Our original sponsorship target for MacMillan was £2,000, but this was broken a couple of weeks into the trip, and since the return the amount has doubled from £5,000 to over £10,000.’

MacMillan donation page: justgiving.com/fundraising/brodiesbigbritishboatbikebash