Two keen Cumnock brothers are ready to tackle almost 100 miles of walking in two days to support a worthy Ayrshire charity.
Stephen Stakim and his brother Kenny will take on the 96-mile West Highland Way walk next weekend in support of Crosshouse Children's Fund.
The charity supports babies, children and young people right across Ayrshire and Arran.
Having taken on the walk before, the brothers have decided to go that one step further and try to complete it within two days.
They've also tackled it in aid of charity before, but this is a whole new proposition for Stephen and Kenny.
Stephen said: "We wanted to do this for charity but we didn’t really have a charity in mind.
“I’ve done the West Highland Way five times before but I’ve split it over five days, and we wanted to challenge ourselves and do it over two days.
“It’s a lot of hours walking and we plan to start at 3am and finish about 10pm or 11pm the following night, which is about 56 miles in.
“We do a lot of long distance walking so we’re definitely up for it.
“We’re both looking forward to challenging ourselves. We’re both getting on a bit now, so we’ve got to keep it going as long as we can.
“We’re feeling fit and ready for it and it we’ll see some lovely sights and hopefully we get to enjoy it as much as we can."
Walking for this charity was suggested to Stephen by his girlfriend, who works in the maternity unit at Crosshouse Hospital.
They will begin the first leg of their journey on Friday, August 9, before aiming to complete the walk on Saturday, August 10.
Stephen added: “It was my girlfriend that put forward Crosshouse Children's Fund because she works in maternity unit and she sees the good work they do. They’ve just built a new garden and it just gives new mums and their kids some brightness in their life when they’re in hospital.
“We’ve done it before for charity and we settled on getting ourselves going for Crosshouse this time.
“We’ll be posting on Facebook to show our progress and the charity has been in touch about sending us t-shirts and stuff and the support we’ve had already has been amazing.
“I think because it’s one of those charities that will have helped so many people across Ayrshire that it resonates with people so much".
The brother have set an initial target of raising £1,000 for charity, with £400 being raised at the time of writing.
You can support their efforts by going to www.justgiving.com/page/stephen-stakim-1720813563707
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