52-year-old Ruth Herbert walked across Europe to raise money for Palestinian medical aid.

I live in a little village by the seafront in the north of England. The day I set out from home, it felt very strange to me, shutting my front door and waving goodbye to my dog and my children. It was about 200 days into what was happening in Gaza, and I was constantly looking at social media, trying to deal with the amount of horrendous images. It wasn’t helping me seeing these images, but I wasn't helping the Palestinians. I feel I needed to do something. Going out walking helps me process things, it’s also a way to raise money for medicine for the Palestinians.

There were 50 or 60 people who had come to see me off and about 25 people walked with me the first day. It was really incredible, a real sense of community. As I walked through the UK, lots of people joined me. In the first few days, I walked with a chap who had walked all his life. I was doing quite long days and, as I was getting to know him, I was thinking, you must be in your 80s and I’m making you walk 25 miles, but he kept up. When I’m on my own, I do quite long days and I get into a rhythm, but when I’m walking with other people, sometimes it can throw me off a little bit. 

I walked down through Blackburn and Manchester, and then through London to Dover. I tell people what I’m doing, and I’ve got little flyers. There are people all over the world, from all different walks of life, who have empathy and compassion for the Palestinians. I’ve quite often told people what I’m doing, and I’ve been given free food and free meals and free accommodation because they want to support what I’m doing and support the Palestinians. There’s only been a few situations where people have reacted negatively to the cause.

I caught the ferry to France, and then I followed the Via Francigena, which is a pilgrimage route from Canterbury to Rome. In France, I was walking through fields where wheat had just been planted. By the time I left, it was golden. I went over the St Bernard pass in spring with all the spring flowers. That was incredibly beautiful. Then I peeled off the path and walked across the top of Italy and Slovenia. I had a friend that came to walk with me in Italy for a month, who was saying, “You’ve really inspired me. The fact that you’ve just got up and done this, it means that I want to get up and do something.” Taking the initiative and doing something, we never know what the impact is going to be, but it’s better to do something than nothing. 

In Croatia, I had to make a decision. Because of the UK leaving the European Union, I only have three months to be in the Schengen Zone. I had to catch a bus to Bosnia, so I had to skip some miles. Since then, I’ve done Bosnia, Montenegro and Albania. In Bosnia, you've got these huge mountains, but they look like they're collapsing in on themselves. They’ve got sinkholes everywhere. It’s a really strange landscape. Yesterday, I’d been walking along the coast in Albania and I turned up into the mountains. It was so beautiful.

I'm doing Macedonia next. I’m walking to Istanbul and I’m going to be following the Via Egnatia, which is an old pilgrimage route that goes out from Tirana. The mountains are quite big, so for the first time I'm thinking about getting a guide. It’s autumn and I need to be careful.

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