A WOMAN is going farther out of her way for charity than she expected.

Rachel Cook, from New Marske , near Redcar , east Cleveland, thought she had signed up to abseil from the top of Middlebrough’s Transporter Bridge.

In fact, she realised too late that she had signed up to abseil a Transporter Bridge 222 miles away in Newport, Wales.

Instead of an 11-mile journey taking about 20 minutes, Mrs Cook, a 28-year-old shopworker, will today drive six hours each way for the challenge The abseil will only take about 30 minutes, then Mrs Cook, who is at work tomorrow, will drive all the way back.

Her husband, Nik, and daughters Abigail, seven, and Lilly, two, will go with her, along with her mother.

She said: “I had been thinking of abseiling down the Transporter for a while and one day I just Googled something like, ‘charity abseil, transporter’.

This brilliant charity, The St David’s Foundation, came up and I read up on them, found out they provide a hospice, and I thought, ‘brilliant, a great cause’.

“A couple of days went past and I started getting sponsorship and was just tinkering on the internet and typed in ‘transporter bridge’ and got this sinking feeling when the other one came up.

“I just thought, ‘no, no, no, there’s another transporter’. I had absolutely no idea.

“Of course it made things a little bit different. I spoke to my husband and he said, ‘don’t worry, I’ll pay the sponsorship money for the charity’. But I said ‘no, we’re still doing it, it’s not right to commit to something for charity and not see it through,’ so I’ve decided to go ahead anyway. We’ll be setting off some time before 8am and it’s going to be a family day on the road.”