Amber and Doug's Big Adventure

Amber and Doug's Big Adventure Me and my two dogs Amber and Douglas are going on an epic 285km 6day hiking adventure for charity. All sponsors entered into a huge prize draw!

Please donate to help HeroPaws and Search and Rescue Dogs Association Wales. Enter at:
www.bit.ly/AmbDoug

16/06/2024

☆☆☆☆☆☆WINNERS ANNOUNCEMENT☆☆☆☆☆☆

Today is the day of the big prize draw and the results are in! Firstly I just want to say another massive thankyou to all the companies who have kindly donated a prize, you have helped us to raise a massive amount for two very deserving charities. Secondly a huge thankyou to all the friends, family and complete strangers who have donated money towards this fundraiser, you're all amazing and I wish I had a prize for each and every one of you.

Some of the winners have been following me on here or know me personally so I will tag them and others I just have a first name and phone or email address for so keep an eye on your phone/ inbox if your first name matches one of the winners here. I will contact all of you privately but if you are tagged here pm me your details so that we can sort out delivery of your prize.

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Water-to-Go - These guys not only donated prizes but also supplied me with one of their amazing filtration bottles to take on the walk. We couldn't have done what we did without being able to drink safely from random dubious water sources along our route so we really do appreciate it and will continue to use the bottle on many more adventures. Our water-to-go prize winners are Barney Graham Dean and Xavier Lett

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Pawfit - We love our pawfit gps tracker and Douglas wore it on the walk, the first day alone he racked up 114,855 steps over 61.39km! The winner of the Pawfit 3 is Cheryl Small

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Beco have given us some great toys and treats to give away which we've split into 3 prizes. Deborah McMahon you have won the Wobble ball and treats. Sophie Morgan you have won the Tommy the Turtle 🐢 toy and treats and Kieron Hawke you have won the Sindy Starfish and treats.

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Betty Miller - Pet Foods and Treats have kindly donated some delicious dog treats. We have 2 winners that will each recieve 2 bags of treats, Victoria Louise Morris and Laurence Skeldon.

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Zip World - The winners of the Bounce Below Family of 4 ticket are Ivy and Oscar Townsend.

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Trekitt - These guys are amazing and very kindly donated a Fjallraven Keb 52 rucksack. The lucky winner is Richard with phone ending 878.

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Octo-Freak Body Piercing at Studio 100 - Formerly body Piercing by Torz has donated an amazing £50 voucher to spend online or in store on her wonderful range of jewellery and homewares (or piercings if you want to visit her Hereford store). The winner is Sarita/Savita can't read my own writing 😆 txt coming your way.

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Woodland Ways- If Carlsberg made Bushcraft courses....the incredibly talented and generous Jason Ingamells donated a course of choice up to the value of £270 and this has been won by my little brother and his girlfriend James D'sylva and Katie Norris.

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The Bushcraft Show - These guys have been amazing letting me display my banner, do a talk and collect sponsorship money at their event this year. We go back every year and always have a fantastic time. David has very kindly donated a family ticket to next years show which has been won by Rory (number ending 159 msg on its way to you). And also a subscription to Bushcraft & Survival Skills Magazine which has been won by Liam Stirling.

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The Natural Pup Collective donated a box of all natural dog treats which will be winging its way to the lucky pups owned by John Snook.

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Hereford Mantrailing donated an introductory course into their super fun sport which has luckily been won by one of our many sponsors from Hereford our good friend Shadow the Lab and his mum Lorraine Butterfield. We know you'll love it!

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Douglas and Dexter have donated a £5 voucher for their cool dog bandanas which has been won by Darren & Tinker.

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VOOM Nutrition - Be warned these products are amazing and very addictive 😆 Voom helped me no end on the walk and definitely gave me the boost I needed to get up the hills. My absolute favourite is the raspberry pocket rocket bar. These guys have been so generous to not only provide me more than enough product for my trip but also to donate a full taster box and a £25 voucher to our lucky winner Jake (number ending 581 msg on its way to you)

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Hero paws - Life AFTER service - These guys are super appreciative for all of your support and have put their own prize into the draw which will consist of a £40 voucher to use in their online store, a K9 plush toy, HeroPaws mug and a few other little HeroPaws goodies. The winner of this is Shaun Fiona Hurrell.

Congratulations to all of the winners and I will be in touch to sort your prizes ASAP!

13/06/2024

Hey everybody. Just thought I'd share this video of some of our walk highlights.

Douglas is raring to go again now and my ankle is almost better after getting over several days of numbness all up my leg I believe caused by compression of the sensory nerve. I just have a bit of ankle pain now but the numbness is gone (zero drop boots were probably not the best idea).

We'll be back on the trails very soon! Just a few days until the big prize draw now so don't forget to donate before 16th if you want tickets.

I hate to have to post this but we've had to postpone finishing the trail with 167.4km covered so far. I feel rubbish fo...
04/06/2024

I hate to have to post this but we've had to postpone finishing the trail with 167.4km covered so far. I feel rubbish for having to do this but im not willing to compromise Douglas's health.
We've run into a few incidents along our journey to say the least. There were a couple of route diversions which added a couple of miles and a ton of stiles. A first day of 60.7km/37.7miles left me with quite a lot of pain in my left achilles and a ton of blisters acquired over the 3.5days but I was pushing on through it all be it slower than planned and tbh the blisters stopped bothering me after a while (I should've made a video of draining them all, grim 🤢)

Yesterday Douglas seemed to still be going strong all day, pulling ahead and although seeming a little tired he was acting completely fine and normal. Because of this I was shocked last night when I removed his harness and found that it had rubbed his left shoulder blade raw. Once the harness was off he was very sensitive over it but begrudgingly allowed me to wash and disinfect it. This meant that today I had him in collar and lead and also I was carrying all of his kit as he couldn't have the harness back on. Aside from the occasional spinning round to lick his wound he was OK.
Today was really slow going and supposedly the hardest section of the entire trail. It had a lot of hills and stiles and when he crossed one around lunchtime he fell a little awkwardly which probably made a tired achey body even more so. After another hour passed I could tell that he had enough. He was walking between my legs a lot and started laying down whenever I stopped to check the map for a second. I know from the rubbing bag incident that he will probably carry on even when he's hurting so I called it. It's one thing to push through my own pain as I made the choice to be there but I don't want him injured.
Pics of us awaiting pick up.

I will return to complete the last 80ish miles hopefully in my allotted 2.5 days very soon. Sorry to temporarily let everyone down. The prize draw will still continue as planned on 16th June and I will post more photos and be more responsive to comments tomorrow but for now we sleep.

Thankyou all so much for your support!

Half way point
04/06/2024

Half way point

Day 4 let's go!
04/06/2024

Day 4 let's go!

We made it to Knighton! Only 96miles to go.
03/06/2024

We made it to Knighton! Only 96miles to go.

Whilst we're struggling along Amber is back at base taking care of admin tasks and monitoring where we've got to. She's ...
03/06/2024

Whilst we're struggling along Amber is back at base taking care of admin tasks and monitoring where we've got to. She's a good girl 😁

Very slow setting off this morning as we didn't get camped until late and needed a rest but now on the move again. Wish ...
03/06/2024

Very slow setting off this morning as we didn't get camped until late and needed a rest but now on the move again. Wish us luck!

Wow guys! Thankyou all so much. Camped up at the end of day 2 and what a nice surprise to check my emails and see all th...
02/06/2024

Wow guys! Thankyou all so much. Camped up at the end of day 2 and what a nice surprise to check my emails and see all this progress. Makes the pain all worth it.

02/06/2024

We've taken plenty of opportunities to hydrate and cool down today. Feet are dead and I still have 12km to go today 😩. So far I have covered 99km of the 285km. If you feel my pain is worth a few quid then please sponsor us to raise as much as possible for Hero paws - Life AFTER service and Search and Rescue Dog Association SARDA Wales

Donate here 👇
www.bit.ly/AmbDoug

Just stopped for a lunchbreak at 25km after coming down towards Hay-on-Wye. The most part of my day so far has been fair...
02/06/2024

Just stopped for a lunchbreak at 25km after coming down towards Hay-on-Wye. The most part of my day so far has been fairly easy going ridgeway walking after an initial steep climb. Lots of sheep, wild ponies and their foals and lots of pools to cool paws and fill up my Water-to-Go bottle from, I just had to be careful not to scoop up a tadpole! Those VOOM Nutrition bars have really kept me going so far. Better crack on I guess another 15.7miles to go today.

Day 1 was HARD! There was a temporary route diversion which had a million stiles on it and we ended covering 60.72km whi...
02/06/2024

Day 1 was HARD! There was a temporary route diversion which had a million stiles on it and we ended covering 60.72km which I think is about 38miles. I have 1very bruised ankle and a fair amount of blisters but day 2 is underway. Once we get up Hatteral Hill we should have a fairly easy 14 or so miles to start the day off.

We made some trail friends who we walked with all the way to Monmouth and they took a couple of pics of us. Back on our ...
01/06/2024

We made some trail friends who we walked with all the way to Monmouth and they took a couple of pics of us. Back on our own now 😊

Let's Gooooo!
01/06/2024

Let's Gooooo!

Hi guys just a bit of a sad update that I've been putting off. Unfortunately a couple of weeks ago Amber had an injury w...
31/05/2024

Hi guys just a bit of a sad update that I've been putting off.
Unfortunately a couple of weeks ago Amber had an injury whilst out on a walk, it was a complete accident but she got wiped out when she stepped in front of Douglas whilst he was running. Although she is mostly back to normal on our regular dog walks this accident has highlighted the start of some ongoing hip issues with her. Some days she has been fine and others she has been hanging back a bit. She is under treatment and will be having some physio soon but I've made the decision to not bring her on the walk for her own safety.
It's gutting to have to leave her behind as it was supposed to be our adventure before Douglas even came onto the scene but I don't want to cause her pain on such a high intensity journey. I had considered taking her for a few hours and getting her collected but as well as it proving logistically difficult I also think it may upset her to be taken from us whilst we are still walking. She will have a good time with her best mate Riley and will be head of admin and social media whilst I'm away and hopefully she'll be able to come and meet us at the end.

Everybody send healing vibes 🤞

Just a couple of days now until we set off on our epic adventure to raise money for Hero paws - Life AFTER service  and ...
30/05/2024

Just a couple of days now until we set off on our epic adventure to raise money for Hero paws - Life AFTER service and Search and Rescue Dog Association SARDA Wales .
The aim is to walk all 285km/177miles of the Offa's D**e in just 6days with all our food and kit and wildcamping along the way. We are aiming to raise £5,000 but we're still a fair way off target.

We've had some really kind donations from lots of companies which means we can run a prize draw worth over £1500! Every £1 that you sponsor gives you a ticket into the draw.

Please support us in our journey to help give retired military and service dogs the long and happy retirement that they all deserve and also to keep those skilled dog teams out working with Mountain Rescue to bring back injured and lost walkers.

If you would like to support us then head to:

www.givewheel.com/fundraising/1703/emma-and-ambers-big-adventure/

Looking swish in our Hero paws - Life AFTER service bandanas from Peaks For Paws. We think mum is a bit sad though becau...
28/05/2024

Looking swish in our Hero paws - Life AFTER service bandanas from Peaks For Paws. We think mum is a bit sad though because she has been working very hard to get people's pennies for the Hero doggos and the Searching doggos but we didn't get close to the goal yet and we only have a few more days until we set off. We really don't want to let those guys down.

If you think you could spare a few shiny coins or papery ones to help Hero Paws and Search and Rescue Dog Association SARDA Wales and support us on our 285km/177mile trek over just 6 days then please click the link below and give generously. There is also a prize draw so everyone who sponsors £1 or more has a chance to win some amazing goodies worth £1500!

Let's make them doggos proud!

www.givewheel.com/fundraising/1703/emma-and-ambers-big-adventure/

27/05/2024

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Hereford

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