Johnny will go the distance for Eilidh

Cycle will raise vital cash for respite home

- CHRIS MARZELLA

A former police officer will set off on a mammoth charity cycle this weekend that will see him negotiate his way through deserts and some of Africa’s toughest terrain to raise vital funds in memory of a tragic Stirling schoolgirl.

Johnny Dreczkowski, a retired Detective Inspector who worked with the Head of Counter Terrorism and Covert Specialist Training at Police Scotland following almost 30 years’ police service, will set off on Saturday as he looks to pedal almost 2500 miles all the way to Marrakesh, in western Morocco.

The mammoth effort aims to raise much-needed cash for the Eilidh Brown Memorial Fund’s respite home in Thornhill.

Johnny, from Bridge of Allan, will take on the lung-bursting challenge solo and will set off from iconic Stirling Castle at 8am on Saturday.

From there, he will pass through seven countries in just six weeks.

He plans to navigate his way from Scotland to England, through the Netherlands, Belgium, France, across the mountains of the Pyrenees at the Col Du Portelait mountain pass and down into Spain, through Zaragoza and Madrid, before crossing to Tangiers, Morocco on the continent of Africa.

From there he will travel south to Casablanca then on towards the Atlas Mountains and hopes to reach the finishing line in Marrakesh sometime in mid-June.