Daniel Forrester is walking to Ghana to fulfil a promise he made to his late wife. His final route has not been confirmed but he will be travelling through places like Morocco, Western Sahara, Senegal, and the Ivory Coast.
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00:00Talk to us about the logistics. How is this walk going to actually work? You've got some
00:04serious planning to do. Yeah, good morning. I've already planned a route from Romford
00:12to Gibraltar, which goes through London and Kent, through France down to Lourdes,
00:19because I want to make it a bit of a pilgrimage from Canterbury to Lourdes,
00:23and then from Lourdes to through Spain to Gibraltar. And after that, get ferry over to
00:30Morocco, walk through Morocco, Western Sahara. The route's to be decided here,
00:36but we're probably going to go through Senegal, Guinea, Ivory Coast, and then into Ghana.
00:44Daniel, it's incredibly impressive, not only to be going the journey, but to be walking it as well.
00:51I'm wondering, logistically, how's that going to work? Will you have a support crew with you,
00:54and how long do you expect this to take? Yeah, that's a good question, actually. I've got a
01:00couple of independent travel companies helping me out at the moment with the logistics in Africa.
01:05But I've already said to many people, I could literally get up right now and walk to Gibraltar,
01:10that's not a problem. But once you get into Africa, it gets a bit dicey. So yeah,
01:14I've got a few companies helping me out with logistics, so we can get water and stuff like
01:19that, and a few guides. So yeah, so I've got a few companies helping me out on that one.
01:23Have you done anything like this before? Have you done any sort of long-distance walks,
01:26runs, anything of the like? Well, yeah, I've been doing a lot of
01:30long-distance walking recently. It just started after Caroline's funeral. I'd already spoken to
01:36her about this a few days before she passed. I had been thinking about it for a while, because
01:42unfortunately, Caroline's ill, and I didn't want to, but I could see where it was going.
01:48And when she was in the hospice, I had a conversation with her, and she said,
01:53would you do that for me? And I was like, of course I would, babe. So yeah, so I'm 100%
01:56committed to this. To be honest with you, back in the past, I was a bit lazy. I'd get a taxi
02:02everywhere. But after Caroline's funeral, I just started walking. So I just started doing five
02:07miles here, six miles there, and then 10, then 15, now it's 20, 25, 30 miles. And I'm finding it
02:14it's a challenge to do 30 miles, but I'm finding it quite easy to do 20.
02:21I've got 50 miles coming up this weekend, actually. I've got a couple of walks I'm
02:24doing this weekend. So I should be doing 50 miles at the weekend.
02:27In preparation. It must be amazing for the mental health side of things as well. What do you think
02:31Caroline would say to you if she knew that you were actually embarking on this challenge now?
02:37Well, she did know I was going to do it. She'd be very proud, yeah. And she'd believe me anyway.
02:42She'd know once I said I was going to do it, I was going to do it. So yeah, she'd be very proud
02:46indeed, definitely. And what's the support been like from your family as well? I know you're
02:50a dad of three, Caroline a mum of two. Yeah, the support from my family has been fantastic.
02:57I can't fault it. My mum's been amazing. All the family have been great. I mean,
03:01it's been a difficult time for all of us. But I'll be honest with you, I'm a little bit
03:05emotional talking about it now. I might not have seen you, but it's a difficult thing to talk
03:09about. It's only three months ago. But the support network I've got has been amazing.
03:14Well, of course, it must have been so hard. I mean, as you say, only a few
03:19months ago. And it was actually just 10 months after your engagement as well.
03:24Yeah, that's true. Yeah. We were actually due to get married September 20th this year, 2025.
03:30And that's the day I intend on leaving the hospice.
03:34That's incredibly, incredibly special. Tell us, because you're doing this to raise money
03:39for the hospice as well. That must be really special to both you and them.
03:44Yeah, it is. Definitely. I mean, I'm not going to name names, but I was going to do it for another
03:49charity, but there wasn't the support. And then I got off the phone with this charity and I turned
03:58on the radio and I heard the news about hospices struggling in this country. And I just immediately
04:03thought, oh, St Francis, because they were brilliant. They were so good with Caroline.
04:07So I called them up and we arranged a meeting and went down there and it's all just gone from
04:11there and then really behind me. When you look at this, and we sort of said it in our introduction
04:17there, you mentioned it as well, that parts of this journey will be treacherous for a number
04:21of reasons. There'll be extreme heat, extreme weather, but political unrest as well. Of course,
04:26you said you've got travel operators helping you navigate through that. But are you scared at all?
04:32How do you prepare for that kind of thing? Because you can do your walks and prepare physically,
04:36but that's sort of a different element to this. I don't know if scared's the right word. I mean,
04:44one of the travel operators advised me not to go so inland and maybe go a more coastal route because
04:51the areas around Mali and Burkina Faso are quite arduous with threats of extremists and stuff like
05:00that. But listen, I've been watching a few vlogs of people travelling in Africa. I'll just take it
05:06as it comes. I'm not going to worry about it too much. I'll worry about tomorrow's tomorrow.
05:12And one thing we haven't mentioned yet is that you're actually going to Ghana because it's where
05:17your wife grew up. It's the place she called home for 12 years when she was young. So what's that
05:23going to feel like when you reach the destination? Well, I should imagine it's going to feel very
05:29emotional. Yeah, Caroline was very proud of her Ghanaian roots. Yeah, so we were actually due to
05:37be there this month. Unfortunately, that's not happened. So yeah, so I just saw it fit in and
05:45right to take her home.