Working on ride-on mowers is part of the job for Colin North, owner of Bourne to Garden, a grounds maintenance business based in Kent, UK. However, it wasn’t until a friend mentioned the current world record attempt for the fastest journey from Lands End to John O’Groats on a ride-on mower that he suddenly thought what a great challenge it would be to try and beat this whilst raising money for charity, after all he has plenty of experience driving them all day!
Colin explains further; “We are aiming to beat the current world record of 5 days, 8 hours and 36 minutes, completed by Andy Maxfield on the 30 July 2017. We will be driving an ISEKI SF5 ride-on mower that has been kindly donated and supported by ISEKI UK, aiming for up to 20 hours driving each day. All this, whilst most importantly for us, raising money for three charities that are close to our heart’s; Motor Neurone Disease Association, Kenward Trust who help those struggling with alcohol or drug addiction and The Masonic Charitable Foundation, with the target to raise £30,000 to be split equally between each of the charities.”
Starting off at Lands End on Monday 27th June they will be avoiding the motorways and traveling through the counties listed below in order to reach their final destination of John O’Groats, whilst hopefully beating the current World Record:
World Record attempt route:
- Cornwall
- Devon
- Somerset
- Gloucestershire
- Worcestershire
- Shropshire
- Cheshire
- Merseyside
- Lancashire
- Cumbria
- Dumfriesshire
- Lanarkshire
- West Lothian
- Stirlingshire
- Perthshire
- Inverness-shire
- Ross & Cromarty
- Sutherland
- Caithness
“We can’t wait to get started, there is a lot of preparation involved and we could not have done this without the support of ISEKI UK who will be travelling with us all the way too. We look forward to seeing people out on route, don’t forget to give us a beep and a wave! Between ourselves and ISEKI UK we will be doing regular updates on social media, interviews on TV and local radio coverage throughout the journey so please keep a listen out for us.”
David Withers (pictured above with Colin North) from ISEKI UK adds; “It is great that a customer of ours has chosen one of our mowers to attempt this world record! We are so excited to support them on this challenge and look forward to supporting them throughout the journey then being with them at John O’Groats at the end of the race to celebrate their achievement!”
As part of the world record attempt stipulations, independent witness signatures and photos are required along the way, so keep a look out on ISEKI’s social media for details of where they will be on route and follow the tracker. Encouragement along the journey and coming out to wave them past will no doubt be appreciated to help keep the morale high on what will be an extremely long, testing and tiring journey.
Details of how to donate can be found at www.bournetogarden.com
