Two swimmers have completed a challenge to swim from Scotland's west coast to its east coast in just ten days.
Graham Donald and Kerran Traynor set off from Loch Linnhe on September 13 and made their way through rivers and lochs in the Great Glen area, passing through water the entire way.
The pair crossed 120km of open water, passing through Loch Lochy, Loch Oich, Loch Dochfour and Loch Ness, before finishing in the Beauly Firth at Inverness.
Graham and Kerran have raised just under £3,200 for Marie Curie and Gambia's Bansang Hospital Appeal.
The pair said the feat had never been done before.
Kerran, 31, said: "Graham mentioned the idea over a pint in passing and then a month or so down the line I asked what's the plan.
"It's almost like someone's drawn a line for us to swim along."
Graham and Kerran had originally planned to complete in a run-swim-run event last year until Kerran ruptured his Achilles and had to have surgery in December.
Graham, 27, said: "It started out as a bit of an idea but then all of a sudden people started sponsoring us, and we thought now we really do have to do this.
"We were spurred on by the people supporting us.
"We thought 'Wow, this is actually happening'. It all went really smoothly and it was good to tackle."
Graham chose to sponsor Marie Curie because his grandmother, Joyce, suffered from breast cancer in 2009, and his great-grandmother also suffered from cancer in the 1980s.
Kerran's charity of choice, the Bansang Hospital Appeal, is run by the mother of a friend from university, Anita Smith MBE.
Kerran added: "She runs the whole charity and she does it pretty much single-handedly.
"She has endless amounts of generosity so wherever possible I try and get on board and help them out."
The volunteer team was led by Graham's father, John, and uncle, Tom, and were there throughout their challenge.
They gave themselves two weeks to complete the challenge but finished early after just 10 days.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel