Durban - Cricket great Sir Ian Botham will “beef up” South African charities as he embarks on a series of fund-raising walks around the country, including in Durban.
The walks will be between 14km and 29km. The Durban walk will cover 20km, from Food Lover’s Market in Springfield to the uMhlanga Rocks Pier.
There would be a walking party of about 30 people, but there was space for up to 150, said his daughter, Sarah, on Sunday. The walk has been scheduled for December 14 at 7.15am.
His walks, across the country, start in Cape Town from The Table Bay Hotel to Llandudno Beach on December 9, with the final one in Pretoria at Church Square on December 17. All proceeds are for local charities.
Botham, whose nickname is Beefy, played for England between 1977 and 1992. He started doing walks for charity in 1985 after he had been to see a surgeon for an injury. According to Botham’s website, he walked past a children’s ward and stopped to talk to four boys. As he left he told them he would see them in two weeks when he returned for his assessment. However, their doctor said: “They won’t be here, they have leukaemia.”
From then, he decided to do a walk to raise money for research and awareness.
His first walk took him across the length of the UK, from John O’Groats to Land’s End, about 1 407km.
On the preparations for this year’s walk, Botham said: “My daughter Sarah has been working on this project for a year now. There is a lot of ‘red tape’ to go through, we are walking in eight different areas so that’s eight different police forces, municipalities and communities to liaise with, on top of that is the sponsors, press… it goes on and on.
“I have the easy job of turning up and walking!”
This will also be the last year that he does a charity walk.
“I’m 60. It’s the 30th year of walking. When we started walking it was unique, now everyone is doing a walk, run, cycle… It’s time to move on and fund-raise in different ways. We won’t stop fund-raising, we will just find other fun ways to do it.”
For more info visit: http://www.beefywalkingtherainbownation.com/
Daily News
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