Mother and son walk Great Wall of China

Last month, Tracy-Jayne Johnston and her eighteen year old son, Jordan James Kennedy donned their hiking boots and make the 4000 mile journey from the local village to challenge on of greatest man made structures on earth.

In the process the pair have raised over £6,000 for local cancer Charity Cancer Focus NI, Tracy told the Ballymena and Antrim Times that knowing a local group would benefit from their efforts made their task that bit easier.

She said: “It’s important to us that the money raised is going to this local charity, I completed an abseil down the Europa Hotel and signed up to the charity,

“I read about this trek to China and signed up. I told my son about it and he did the same.

“Our family has been affected by cancer, our uncle passed away through cancer and another family member passed away quite quickly due to it.

“So we have raised money for this local charity helping people dealing with cancer.”

The Great Wall itself is over 13,000 miles long but the Tracy-Jayne, Jordan and the team trekked along it for five days covering a blister-inducing 70 miles.

She added: “We were usually on the go for six hours a day, there were a lot of steps, there was over 1,000 steps to climb before we even got to the wall.

“All the time there just seemed to be a lot of steps.

“I had walked and walked before going to get myself ready for the challenge and I think it paid off.”

What next for Tracey-Jayne? “I’m going to do a sky-dive and I hope to sign up to another trek, maybe in the Sahara or Borneo.”