THE end of Ian Young's gruelling walk across Europe is almost in sight - on a local athletics track.

Mr Young and his dog Sally are in Chester-le-Street, County Durham, completing the missing miles from their 900-mile hike. The pair returned to the town recently from their 109-day journey through Germany, Belgium and France.

Mr Young was disappointed that he could not walk the entire distance because he had to catch the ferry across the English Channel and cross the Humber Bridge by car.

So he and his faithful companion, a labrador collie cross, are making up the miles by doing repeated laps of the track at the Riverside Stadium.

Yesterday, they did between 16 and 20 miles and they hope to cover a similar distance today.

"We did 40 laps and we were joined by about 20 people. There were people from Portsmouth and there were some lads football training who went round the track kicking a football," Mr Young said.

Mr Young had been working in Germany as a dog trainer and undertook the journey to raise money for the International Service Dog Fund, which trains dogs to help people with disabilities.

He hopes to set up a centre in Chester-le-Street to train dogs to serve the community under the auspices of the fund.

"We are going for charity status and need to raise about £1,000, but the real target is getting publicity. We are quite pleased and we feel we have achieved that."

People are welcome to join Mr Young and Sally doing more laps between 9am and 1pm.