“I’M alive because of luck and doctors... Walking didn’t cure my ovarian cancer, the NHS did that. But walking both healed me and made me feel normal again...”

These are the words of Ursula Martin from Machynlleth, who walked almost 4,000 miles across Wales.

Aged just 31, Ursula was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.

After being treated, and determined not to sink into self-pity, she decided to walk between her home in mid Wales to follow-up hospital appointments in Bristol.

Ursula, who described herself as “a plump, unpractised woman in a raincoat and woollen hat,” walked across, around, up, over and through all of Wales, covering over 3,718 miles. She had planned to walk 3,300 miles but realised towards the end that she had miscalculated.

The walked raised money - over £11,000 for Target Ovarian Cancer and Penny Brohn Cancer Care - and awareness of the need for early detection of ovarian cancer.

Ursula’s journey took 18 months as she walked through the often gruelling, harsh winter weather.

With a tarpaulin and a bivvy bag, she chose to sleep in the wild much of the time, staying in a forest, a yurt, a campsite, a hostel, a polytunnel, a barn, a caravan, black plastic pipes, a ruined cottage, a club doorway, with nuns, in a public park, a pub garden, fields of wheat and grass, a golf course, a slate tower and a church, amongst other places.

“I deeply love camping without a tent,” said Ursula. “The immediacy of the experience, waking up to see the moon beholding me, my night time companion.”

Ursula wrote a blog whilst walking, and Aberystwyth-based publisher Honno is about to release it as a book.

One Woman Walks Wales is published on 22 February, in time for Ovarian Cancer Month in March.

The paperback costs £12.99 and £1 from every print copy sold will be donated to Target Ovarian Cancer, the UK’s leading ovarian cancer charity.

Ursula will launch the book at the Great Oak Bookshop in Llanidloes on Friday, 16 February, at 7pm and at Waterstones in Aberystwyth on Thursday, 22 February, at 6.30pm.

Read the full feature in this week’s Cambrian News, on sale now