Ross Sullivan ready to swim 110km across Scotland

This weekend adventurer Ross Sullivan will set off on his latest challenge: swimming across Scotland.

Ross hopes that the 110km swim will take him six days. He plans to swim around 15km each day, starting in the sea at Fort William and ending in Inverness. The 25-year-old engineer will start the swim tomorrow morning (Saturday 27 August).

Ross will swim across the country via a series of lochs linked by canals and rivers. At night he and his team will wild camp. From Fort William he will swim to the first loch, 16km-wide Loch Locky. A canal connects Loch Locky to Loch Oich. After an 8km crossing of Loch Oich, Ross will tackle the rapids of the River Oich to take him to Loch Ness. Having already swam around 47km, Ross will then dodge Nessie to swim the 37km length of Loch Ness. With water temperatures expected to be between 10 and 13 degrees Celsius, the cold is Ross’s biggest worry.

“I have swam in 10 degrees water before, and it is unbearable. You are a ticking time bomb at this temperature. I wouldn’t be able to sustain swimming in this water temperature for any longer than an hour. Hypothermia will be my biggest worry for this adventure,” says Ross.

If he survives the attentions of the Loch Ness Monster, Ross will then swim 20km down the River Ness to the sea to finish his challenge at Inverness.

Earlier this year Ross swam Britain’s longest river, the River Severn. That swim took him 18 days and raised more than £2,000 for the Motor Neuron Disease Association.

For his ‘Swimming Across Scotland’ challenge, Ross is raising money for the Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospital Charity. You can donate on his JustGiving page.