EMBSAY woman Jo Moseley is preparing to paddle board the 162 mile coast to coast Desmond Family Canoe Trail - and she will be picking up rubbish along the way.

Jo says ‘Paddle Board the North’ will not only raise money for charity, but will highlight problems of littering.

The route will take her along the entire length of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal and the Aire and Calder Navigation. It will include 105 locks and 57 swing bridges, and the one mile long tunnel at Foulridge, which was opened for the first time to canoeists in 2017.

She plans to start in Liverpool on July 27, and paddle between 16 and 18 miles a day, finishing in nine days.

Jo, who will be doing the challenge in her summer holiday, will also spend two minutes of every day collecting rubbish, which she hopes will encourage others to do the same.

She will be raising money for The Wave project, which helps young people gain confidence and self belief through surf therapy, and ‘two minute beach clean’, which encourages people to spend two minutes every day picking up litter, wherever they are.

“My goal is to share the joy of the waterways for our physical and mental wellbeing and how we can all make a difference to look after them. I also want to show that we can have these tiny every day adventures which are on our doorstep,” she said.

Jo, 54, has been doing a daily litter pick every day for more than a year and has made a short film about it, Small Things, Great Love which she has entered in the Hinterlands Film Festival, due to take place in Skipton next month.

“I will do at least a two minute litter pick each day and will aim to make the journey as single use plastic free as possible,” she said.

Jo is also carrying out the paddle to cope with her youngest son heading off to university later in the year. “ I wanted to do something to show my two sons and myself that I would be okay and have lots going on in life,” she said.

In 2014, Jo completed a million metre challenge on a static rower, raising £8,000 for Macmillan Cancer Support,

She has been paddle boarding for three years, after hearing it was good for core strength, and practises on canals, at the seaside and on reservoirs. “You’re never too old to do something wild and it’s not too late to make a difference - I’m hoping I can prove both,” said Jo, who has more than 3,000 followers on her Twitter account, @healthyhappy50. To support Jo in her challenge, go to: healthyhappy50.com/update/paddleboard-the-north/