A SEVENTY-year-old Gazette reader is safely home after a six-day trek along the Great Wall of China.

Dot Broadhurst, of Kirkby-in-Furness, responded to an appeal in this newspaper for people to join the expedition and raise money for the Rosemere Cancer Foundation.

The retired nurse and learning difficulties support worker's first thought was to sign up, and her second was to hire a personal trainer to ensure she could match the other 16 walkers' fitness and stamina.

The itinerary saw the trekkers cover four to seven hours' walking and climbing a day, following the Great Wall as it snakes through woods and terraced farmland in remote countryside north of Beijing.

Having kept step and now returned home, Dot and her companions' endeavours look set to have raised around £30,000 for the charity. She said her China experience has also renewed her passion for life, travel and adventure.

"The trip was absolutely fantastic. Everything about it was perfect," said the mum-of-three, who has five grandchildren aged two to 19.

"The Great Wall of China was always somewhere I had dreamed of visiting and when I read the story about this particular trek raising money for Rosemere I knew it was for me, as I lost my husband Mike 10 years ago to cancer. My eldest brother died of cancer three or four years ago and I have lost other family members to it, so I wanted to help others also touched by the disease."

Dot, who looked after dementia patients until four years ago, said: "After signing up I realised I would probably be the oldest person in the group. Although I go swimming in Ulverston and I’m a member of Barrow’s Nuffield gym and go dancing at the Forum, I didn’t want to let anyone down by not being able to keep up.”

Dan Hill, Rosemere’s head of fundraising, who took the 17 trekkers to China, said: "Dot was brill. She was our most senior trekker but kept pace with the rest of us.

"As a charity we had never organised an event of this kind before. We were working in the dark with regard to people signing up to the expedition, the expedition itself and the amount of money it would help raise. At best, we were hoping for around £20,000 so to have smashed our target and to have taken a good-sized group out to China, which had a great time, is just a brilliant feeling."

The China party included also included consultant oncologist and keen walker Dr Gerry Skailes, who lives in Heversham.