ow far would you go for a cause you believed in? Retired local nurse, Carol Ferris recently walked 150 miles across a burning desert to raise more than $7,000 for the Women?s Resource Centre.

When Ms Ferris signed up for the Gobi March footrace across the Chinese portion of the desert she was told to expect temperatures in the seventies, because it was only April. In fact, there was a heat wave and temperatures reached 110 degrees Fahrenheit.

The Gobi March was organised by a company called RacingThePlanet that also has endurance races across deserts in Chile, Egypt and Antarctica.

?Race organisers had to make some adjustments to the increased temperatures, such as adding more water stations,? Ms Ferris said. ?There was one day when I was saying I have had enough. There were several people who did drop out. I decided I was going to do it because I am a little bit crazy anyway and have trekked in places like Nepal and Peru, and places like that.?

The Gobi terrain was variable. Part of the race was across the Turpan Basin, the second lowest place on Earth. Although the stereotypical desert has pale sands and dunes, she was often walking across broken black rock.

?The sand has been blown away in this particular area, so it was just miles and miles of slightly undulating hills and black rock,? she said.

?We went from an altitude of about 6,000 feet, but we walked through a valley area and a key canyon with fairly narrow reasonably fast flowing river that came up to our knees. We had to slide down into the water and then we were walking in the water following the canyon. That was fun. I really enjoyed that.?

Along the way she carried a 20 pound backpack that included water, power bars and dried food. Racers were provided with water at campsites and check points along the way.

?You only had to carry enough water to get you from check point to check point,? she said. ?It was a variable distance from one check point to another. Sometimes it was as short as six or eight kilometres, mostly it was more like 12 or 14 kilometres, about ten miles. The whole race was 150 miles and was done over a week.

?So the first day was a set number of miles, and the next day so on. Even if you were doing it really fast you would have to wait at the camp site before setting off the next day. It was a staged race. Your time accumulated as went along.?

Family and friends of the walkers were able to check their progress online. The online website diary provided by RacingThePlanet contained entries like the following: ?April 26 ? Stage 5 is now underway and competitors will have to pass through ten checkpoints over 93 kilometres ? the longest ever stage in the Gobi March. Six competitors have now withdrawn, and most others are experiencing severe blister problems.April 27 ?Temperatures have already reached 110 F in the salt flats. All staff have been mobilised to man the course throughout the day and night. Much of the early stage is over mindless terrain with few signs of life. The official photographer, Lester Lim, has even agreed to man a checkpoint with volunteer, Bonnie Clarke, in the middle of the salt flats with only a vehicle for shade.?

Many of the race participants were raising money for different charities. Ms Ferris chose the Women?s Resource Centre because it is an organisation she often dealt with as an emergency room nurse at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital.

?They do provide a lot of counselling,? she said. ?They don?t get government funding, either. It is difficult to say how much I have raised. I would say probably in the region of about $7,000.?

Some other walkers in the Gobi March were raising money for Operation Smile, a group of doctors that were operating on the birth defects of children in a nearby part of China.

?In China, children with birth defects such as cleft palates are very much shunned,? she said. ?Through the money that was raised they managed to do 16 extra surgeries while we were there.

?One of the children who was operated on had a cleft palate. His parents abandoned him. A man found him and took him in. The man already had four or five kids. The wife had to go out on the streets to beg to feed this child. Because of his mouth he couldn?t get very good nutrition and he didn?t eat a lot, so he was very small. Thanks to funds raised from the race he was able to have two surgeries to correct his mouth. When they took him home he didn?t stop eating for two days, they said.?

The little boy was at the finish line to meet the racers. Seeing his smile made it worthwhile for many of the people in the race, including Ms Ferris.

?It brought home the fact that it doesn?t matter what you do in this world, you can still make a difference,? she said. ?I would like to encourage other people to do this kind of thing.?

Ms Ferris said that all along the race, villagers came out to cheer them on. ?I?m sure the people there thought we were crazy,? she said. ?But they were all very supportive. They would come out of the villages and line the streets.?

To prepare for the race, Ms Ferris trained for several months in Bermuda with her dog.

?I started walking and jogging longer distances,? she said. ?Most of the time I had my dog with me as a training partner. He is a Labrador mix named Tuxedo. Everything I did was very repetitious. I would make a circuit over and over again. Over time I gradually increased the weight I was carrying.

?Most of my training was over the winter months. It really didn?t start to get warm in Bermuda until a short while before I left.?

She said she is not a runner, and at 55 years old, she was one of the oldest people in the Gobi March.

?What I came in the race is not important,? she said. ?I would do it again. I know certain people in Bermuda who would love to do this kind of thing. They are athletic. I would encourage them. It would be nice to have a Bermuda contingent at these kind of races.?

People wishing to donate money, can do so directly to the Women?s Resource Centre.