An inspirational charity walker, who has been walking the UK coastline for three and a half years, has passed through Aberdeen.
Chris Lewis started his adventure in August 2017 from his home near Swansea and has been out on the road ever since.
The 40-year-old former paratrooper has raised more than £185,000 for the armed forces charity SSAFA.
Walking not only the coast of the British mainland, Mr Lewis is traversing every island, no matter how remote.
Having clocked up 14,000 of 18,000 miles, he has for company his dog Jet and girlfriend Kate, who joined him in Inverness.
He picked up Jet in Irvine, Ayrshire, with the lurcher oblivious to the miles ahead of him.
Mr Lewis has amassed 75,000 followers on Facebook, who have fallen in love with his relentlessly positive outlook on life.
He updates his site daily, often several times a day, with inspiring thoughts, observations, photos and videos.
When the first lockdown hit last spring, he was forced to self-isolate on the uninhabited island of Hildasay in Shetland.
And having been holed up in rural Aberdeenshire during the second lockdown, the walking boots were back on as he headed south during the week.
Mr Lewis spoke to the Press and Journal from the top of a hill near Cove after leaving Aberdeen, where he slept rough to raise awareness of homelessness.
“I was at Slains Castle when the latest lockdown hit,” he said.
“I did some research to find somewhere in the woods that had good enough wifi and enough protection from the wind.
“We settled on an area in the woods near Gourdon.
“It was certainly a different experience, it’s winter, it’s cold, you’re not moving so you have to work really hard to keep warm.
“But the local support was phenomenal, there were always people coming up to us and checking we were okay.
“What I’ve loved about the north of Scotland, apart from the people, is the wilderness.
“The islands off the west coast are so incredibly wild, Orkney was beautiful, and Shetland was just something else.
“Surviving on a remote, uninhabited island in Shetland during the first lockdown was one of my biggest achievements in life – it’s not the easiest place to be!”
Such a journey inevitably has its highs and lows, with Mr Lewis describing having to pull out his own tooth as a particular low point.
Having originally aimed to raise £100,000 for SSAFA, that target has long since been smashed, leading him to set his sights higher.
“Hitting that target was a huge moment,” he said.
“But on my way down the east coast and into England, I’m going to be hitting bigger towns and busier places with more people, so I feel it’s a case of ‘go big or go home.’
“So I’m resetting the target to £500,000 and I won’t stop until it’s done.”
Having been homeless himself, Mr Lewis is passionate about raising awareness of the issue, and spent a night sleeping rough at Aberdeen’s Castlegate.
“I’ve been homeless before, I understand it, and I have heartfelt sympathy for those in that situation,” he said.
“Nobody, at age 10, says they want to be homeless when they grow up.
“Something has obviously happened for people to be in that situation.
“Now that I have a platform, I wanted to use that to show what it’s like.
“It was minus three the night we did it – I can only respect those living outside, homeless, in a city.”
While mindful of how quickly things have changed over the last year, he is optimistic about completing the challenge within the next 12 months.
To donate to Mr Lewis’s campaign, visit www.justgiving/chriswalks.
