Actress Kate Lamb, formerly of Tenby is cycling 2,500km from Bulgaria to London in aid of street dogs.

Many ‘resting’ actors take up a job in a call centre or waiting tables, but not this one! Kate Lamb, who until recently played nurse Delia Busby in the hit BBC drama Call The Midwife, has decided to take on the challenge of a lifetime instead.

Kate became involved with street-dog neutering and rescue project Street Hearts BG (based in Dryanovo, Bulgaria) earlier this year. She is now not only adopting a rescued nine-month-old street dog named Scout, but is towing her back to London in a trailer behind her bike for the full 2,500km journey. She aims to raise £5,000 for the project with her challenge, which she estimates will take five weeks to complete.

“I’m mildly terrified,” says Kate, who is a keen cyclist and professional dog trainer, but who has never undertaken anything of this magnitude before. “I’ll be cycling through Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Austria, Germany, Holland and then back to the good old UK.” Kate will be carrying all her kit with her, including a tent paid for with adventure vouchers from her Call The Midwife cast members when she left. “They know me far too well,” she says at the choice of gift.

Her challenge starts on August 3 from Tsareva Livada, the area where Scout was found abandoned at the train station.

Emma Smith, the founder of Street Hearts, explains: “Scout had been at the train station for some time, apparently. The poor girl had been vomiting up plastic all day through lack of anything else to eat. Little did we know then that she would be undertaking the trip of a lifetime with Kate!”

Emma and Anthony Smith from Yorkshire started a neutering programme after moving to Bulgaria and seeing first hand the terrible problems arising from the ever-growing street dog population. In the process, they have also acquired around 40 street dogs and puppies, which they ended up caring for in their own home and garden. Their aim is to rehabilitate them and re-home them right across Europe. But the core of the project, as Emma explains, is to stop the problem from arising in the first place with a free neutering programme in the area.

The money raised from Kate’s challenge will go to help towards food, vet bills, medication, microchipping, passports, vaccinations, kennels and shelter areas as Street Hearts works towards full charitable status in both the UK and Bulgaria.

You can read Kate’s blog of her journey here https://k8andk9.com/ and donate to the challenge on her Just Giving page https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/kateandscout .

They have so far raised around half of their £5,000 target.

More information on the Street Hearts BG project can be found on their website https://streetheartsbg.com/