TYNEDALE'S national trail has been the focus for many a quirky charity challenge since its launch 14 years ago - but this week it witnessed one of the most 'off-the-Wall'.

Royal Air Force man Charlie Hammerton has been hiking Hadrian's Wall coast-to-coast path with his faithful ferrit, Bandit, since Monday when he set out from Wallsend.

Charlie, who is 22, was aiming to be the first and fastest man and ferret combo to complete the walk in three and a half days.

"It might seem a slightly crazy thing to do," said Charlie, "but I'm aiming to be the fastest man and ferret to walk the entire path."

Ferreting along the famous footpath may be a comical sight but it has a serious aim - to raise funds to fight motor neurone disease - the illness that claimed the life of his mum, Jan.

Charlie is raising money for St Elizabeth Hospice in Ipswich, where Jan died last month, and for the Motor Neurone Disease Association.

"It's been good to be able to throw myself into planning the hike and doing something positive," he said.

He was planning to complete the 84-mile (135km) walk on Thursday and the Courant caught up with him at Housesteads Roman Fort on Tuesday lunchtime where, apart from a slightly dodgy right ankle (Charlie's not the ferret's), things seemed to be progressing well.

"It's been absolutely beautiful up here," he said. "But the most amazing thing has been the number of people who have recognised us from TV coverage.

"Just as I was walking up today, someone said, 'You're that boy on the news aren't you?"

This is Charlie's first experience of walking the Wall, although he has seen it from the inside of a Chinook helicopter - he works in logistics for the Royal Air Force at RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire and Bandit is a bit of a mascot at the camp.

He and Bandit have had other walking adventures - conquering Mount Snowdon for example - but this is their biggest to date.

"I thought about walking the length of England to begin with but I don't really have the time so I thought why not do the breadth?"On Monday night, they had camped and Charlie confessed that Bandit "can be a bit whiffy" and they'd decided to stay in a hotel outside Greenhead on Tuesday.

The odd couple had already raised more than £3,500 by Tuesday. "The donations so far have been absolutely fantastic and it's humbling to see so much support for us," said Charlie, who is receiving much needed back-up from girlfriend, Isobel McAuliffe.

If you would like to follow their progress and make a donation, then you can do so via their facebook page, 'Adventures with Bandit'

http://bit.ly/CharlieAndBandit

* History tells us that Bandit may not be the first ferret on the Wall for there is some evidence that Roman soldiers routinely used ferrets in hunting rabbits. Ferrets may have spread to the northern European continent during the spread of the Roman Empire, although others have suggested they arrived with Norman invasions.