A man who is walking the entire UK coastline to raise cash for charity has thanked Aberdeen after spending two nights in Castlegate.
Christian Lewis, who is known as Chris, started the challenge in 2017 from Llangennith Beach Hillend Car Park in Wales.
The 40-year-old former British paratrooper has raised more than £185,000 for the Armed Forces charity SSAFA.
Mr Lewis, who is his “element when outdoors”, slept outside at Castlegate on Saturday and Sunday nights with his girlfriend, Kate, and dog, jet.
He spoke about his motivation for taking on this challenge: “I just wanted to get away from where I was and what I was doing, and I always wanted to raise money for charity.
“And SSAFA, being a veteran’s charity, I’m an ex-parachute regiment and they’ve helped me in the past, so I just wanted to give something back.”
Chris recalls being homeless in London and Swansea after his service in the military, and spoke about his experience: “It’s kind of just the isolation.
“Once everybody just goes to bed you’re just there on your own, just in your own thoughts.
“It’s a very lonely place to be, feeling a little bit scummy really, well, I certainly did.”
He hit the headlines in spring last year when his adventure was halted in Shetland due to lockdown measures.
He was given special permission by a fisherman to live in an empty house on Hildasay until lockdown was eased.
Since the start of his adventure, Chris has camped in multiple remote areas.
Mr Lewis walked around the coast of Aberdeenshire before making his way to Aberdeen.
He enjoyed his time here and feels lucky to receive great support from locals.
He said: “We are really lucky in that respect that we have followers, you know, people that want to come and help us.
“Just imagine what that would be like had that not been the case.”
Chris left Aberdeen on Monday morning and headed towards Newtonhill where he plans to make another stop.
He thanked everyone in Aberdeen who came to his aid and supported his fund-raising effort for SSAFA.
SSAFA (The Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association) is a UK charity that supports veterans and serving men and women from the British Armed Forces, and their families or dependents.
The charity was founded in 1885 and have more than 5,000 volunteers trained to offer personalised support to those in their local area.
This article originally appeared on the Evening Express website. For more information, read about our new combined website.
