Rather than settling for a quiet birthday meal, a super-fit fundraiser has celebrated her 70th birthday with a 192-mile walk across England for charity.

Sue Cross, from Clifton, has raised more than £1,000 for Sue Ryder St John’s Hospice in Moggerhanger by completing the Coast to Coast Walk, from Cumbria’s St Bees to Robin Hood Bay in the North York Moors National Park.

She was accompanied by her 72-year-old husband Harvey and her son Alan – who jetted in from Abu Dhabi with his friend Martin Turpin to join at the halfway point, on her birthday itself.

Keen hiker Sue walked Hadrian’s Wall five years ago with Harvey – and she chose to support the hospice because she wanted to mark 70 years in a unique way.

She said: “I wanted to do something different for my birthday.

“Harvey and I like to keep fit. Martin, Alan and I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro some years ago, and Martin climbed to Everest base camp two years ago.

“There were so many highlights of this trip. Alan arriving from Abu Dhabi on my birthday, not getting completely lost, the wonderful people that we met en route, amazing scenery, Martin’s awful jokes – and at the end of a really stormy day, being greeted with tea and toasted tea cakes in one of our B&Bs.

“Some of the most testing aspects were climbing some of the fells in the Lake District in bad weather and being completely covered by the clouds, literally only being able to see the path below our feet.

“There was also difficult descents on the scree and feeling our way through the boggy moors in the Yorkshire Dales without disappearing.”

The trip raised four figures for the Moggerhanger hospice, and could pay for a syringe driver to give constant pain relief for patients.

Shirley Scotcher from the hospice said: “We are so delighted Sue decided to celebrate her birthday in such a special way, and all at Sue Ryder St John’s thank her, Harvey, Martin and Alan for choosing to support us.

“We rely on fundraising to be able to continue to give patients incredible care in Moggerhanger.”

To sponsor Sue see justgiving.com/sue-cross9.

For more about the hospice, see sueryder.org/care-centres/hospices/st-johns-hospice.