A 51-year-old walker plans to reach Minehead on the South West Coast Path en route to Weston-super-Mare shortly after Christmas as the latest lap of her epic 11,000-mile 10-year charity hike around the UK coastline.

Blue Wilson, a local government employee from North Yorkshire, was forced to take a break through heat exhaustion last July while walking between Port Isaac and Bude.

Since setting out in 2020, Ms Wilson has walked in weekly or two-week stages and was back in the Westcountry in September to continue the trek.

She will use her Christmas leave to fill in the 27-mile gap on the north coast of Cornwall that she missed out on the previous walk.

After spending Christmas Day in Bude, she will return to Combe Martin, which she reached in October, and will continue toward Minehead and on to Weston-super-Mare.

Ms Wilson said the five-day hike from Bude was probably the most brutal part of her whole walk.

She said: “Despite its many challenges, I loved walking that stretch.

“I have met some wonderful, friendly, and supportive people along the way.

“However, beautiful as this stretch is, I am really keen to complete another milestone and finish the year on a high.”

After starting from the Yorkshire coast, Ms Wilson has been taking on her epic challenge in between work commitments, using her annual leave and own money on each stage.

In her 238 days of walking, she has covered 4,097 miles so far.

She hopes to see in the New Year in Weston-super-Mare, having completed the South West Coast Path section and raised more than £7,000 for two marine charities, Surfers Against Sewage and Sea Changers.

Ms Wilson said: “Our coastline is so utterly diverse and many of the amazing things I have seen are inaccessible unless you walk to them.

“I have also witnessed the dramatic acceleration in coastal erosion.

“Plastic pollution never ceases to shock me and I see the enormity of the problem as I am walking along our coastline and roadsides.

“The effects of plastic, pollution, and raw sewage discharges on wildlife in our rivers, lakes, and coastline are catastrophic.”

Not surprisingly, Ms Wilson has many tales to tell, including an encounter with lots of potentially unexploded ordnance carpeting a beach early in her travels.

She had inadvertently wandered across an area previously used by the Ministry of Defence as a practice range by firing into the cliff, which had collapsed, leaving ordnance strewn across the beach.

MsWilson said: “I was in the middle of it before I realised there were munition shells all around me.

“I thought about going back but knew that was pointless so decided to keep moving forward - very carefully.”

An artist who has sold her work to Michael Portillo, among others, Ms Wilson is planning to write a book about her exploits using some of the photographs she has taken during her five-year journey.

Ms Wilson’s progress can be followed through her social media links and anybody who wants to donate should visit her JustGiving page.