A ROMSEY man has climbed the three highest mountains in Wales in just two days.

Forty-nine-year-old Alan Stubbington embarked on the Welsh Three Peak challenge earlier this month, and has raised thousands in the process for Prostate Cancer Research.

Alan, a chef at Romsey School, said it was one of the hardest things he has ever done, after setting out at 5.30am on a frosty Saturday morning to begin the challenge.

The Welsh route sees the highest mountain of south Wales, Pen y Fan, before tackling Cadair Idris in mid-Wales, and finally Mount Snowdon in the north.

Alan and his friend Dean Strange took on the task with Gareth and Geoff Richards. Dean, who lives in Southampton, took on a walk along the Great Wall of China last year, where he met Geoff, who lives in Macclesfield.

It is the third year running that Geoff has done the three peak challenge, and Dean asked Alan to join them.

Alan said: "It is definitely one of the hardest things I've had to do. I'm not a walker at all, but after Dean asked me, I couldn't turn it down.

"I have known Dean since the 1990s, he is much more of a walker than I am.

"We set off on the Friday night to drive over to Wales and got up at 4.30am on Saturday morning to start the first mountain. It wasn't so much the climb on the Saturday morning that did us in, it was the driving afterwards, around 100 miles to the next mountain."

Alan said the fundraising has since passed £2,500 after the challenge which took place over the weekend of May 12 and 13.

Alan said: "We managed the Cadair Idris on the Saturday afternoon, then we knew we had Snowdon to tackle the next day. We had an eight-hour sleep which was most welcome, but getting up with achy legs made things so much harder.

"After we did it, it was such a buzz, but we must have got back to Romsey about 8pm on the Sunday evening, and my family had a good old laugh at me trying to walk! It was a terrific achievement though, and one I'll always remember."