KEEN ramblers today completed the challenge of walking every official footpath in County Durham in 18 months.

Between March 2006 and September 2007, the walkers from Durham and Darlington Ramblers group managed to set foot across 2,152 miles of footpaths and bridleways in County Durham in the Ramblers Association Use Your Path challenge.

The group met today to walk their final four miles across Cockfield Fell near Barnard Castle in County Durham.

A map of the county was divided up into 2,500 kilometre squares which were ticked off as all paths in a square were walked.

Roger Carpenter, 60, from Durham City is the association's Use Your Path co-ordinator who organised the event.

He said: "Thanks to the efforts of the Ramblers Association members and other walkers, we should achieve the challenge of walking all footpaths in the County Durham area.

"It has been a very enjoying challenge with nearly 100 walkers taking part and it is a great way to see parts of the county you never knew existed and make friends along the way."

By walking all paths in England and Wales, members of the Ramblers Association hope to raise the profile of the rights of way network across the UK.

A spokesperson from the Ramblers Association said: "Many people taking part in the challenge discovered new paths local to them.

"Also, through the reporting of path problems, we want to connect all walkers to the people responsible for the state of the network and hopefully see a large number of problems fixed."