Lily’s Journey for Weldmar Hospicecare

Imagine hiking through the rugged terrain of the Peruvian Andes, with llamas as your pack animals, landslides altering your route, and altitude sickness threatening to sideline you – all while raising thousands of pounds for a local charity close to your heart.

That’s exactly what Lily Taylor, Assessor at RebuildCostASSESSMENT.com, part of RiskSTOP Group, did earlier this year. Her mission? Conquer the challenge of Weldmar’s Machu Picchu Trek and help raise critical funds for Weldmar Hospicecare in Dorset.

In our latest People at the Heart podcast episode, Lily takes us behind the scenes of her unforgettable challenge in Peru, raising £5,000 for Weldmar Hospicecare – a Dorset charity providing vital end of life care for adults with life limiting illness, and support for their loved ones.

Recorded after her return, Lily talks about the fundraising highs, the physical lows and the moments that stitched a group of strangers into something more.

Tune in to the episode now and hear Lily’s inspirational story:

Transcript available below.

If you would like to read more about or support the incredible work done by Weldmar Hospicecare, head to www.weldmarhospicecare.org today.

For more stories from our people here at RiskSTOP Group, head to our People at the Heart page.

Transcript

Natalie Joyce  00:10

I'm Natalie Joyce, and I'm responsible for sustainability and social responsibility at RiskSTOP Group. Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of our people at the heart podcast, where we like to chat about all kinds of things, both serious and light hearted, connected with our team and our work here at RiskSTOP Group. Today, we're joined by an inspiring guest with an extraordinary story to share. So imagine stepping away from your everyday routine to take on a demanding trek across Peru, battling the elements, pushing yourself physically and mentally all in support of a cause that means the world to you. That's exactly what Lily Taylor did. Lily, an Assessor at RebuildCostASSESSMENT.com took on this incredible challenge in March 2025, trekking through Peru in aid of Weldmar hospice care in Dorset. Lily's here with us today to talk about her journey, what inspired her to do it, and what it was really like to take on such an unforgettable experience. Hi Lily, thank you very much for joining me. So before we dive into Lily's story, I want to take a moment to talk about Weldmar hospice care and the incredible work they do in our community. They're based in Dorchester, which is not far from the RiskSTOP Group head office, and weldmar is a charity providing specialist end of life care for adults with life limiting illnesses. Their dedicated team includes nurses, doctors, therapists, social workers and counsellors, all working together to offer compassionate, expert care. But here's the remarkable part, only 17% of their funding comes from the NHS. The rest relies entirely on support from the local community. To continue offering this care completely free of charge, Weldmar needs to raise a staggering £27,500 every single day. So Lily, can you share a bit about your connection to Weldmar and what inspired you to support them?

Lily Taylor  02:02

Yeah, my Auntie has done one of their treks before, so it's always something that's been part of my family, I suppose, supporting them and things like that. And I just thought it would be something that I would also want to take part in, because it's so local. It's one of those things, you walk past the charity, you walk past the charity shops all the time. Even on a dog walk, you walk past the actual hospice like you're always seeing it, seeing it pop up on Facebook. So it's always something that you're reminded of on a regular basis.

Natalie Joyce  02:33

So what did the trek include? Give us the big picture.

Lily Taylor  02:36

Basically, was just hiking through ups and downs, different terrains, different weather temperatures. You never know when it's gonna start tipping it down over there. So definitely, like one minute you're sweating, the next minute you're putting on layers of coats, you're cold, experiencing all kinds of different temperatures and textures and everything.

Natalie Joyce  02:57

How many days was the actual trek? How long did it last?

Lily Taylor  03:00

So the trek we were supposed to do, we weren't able to do in the end because of the landslides, because they've had so much rain over there. So instead, we did a smaller hike, which was two days, and to match the four days that we were supposed to do, we did day hikes either side to also help us get used to like the altitude out there as well.

Natalie Joyce  03:21

So you mentioned landslides. Did you see any landslides? What was the weather like when you were actually there?

Lily Taylor  03:26

Yeah, we saw a lot driving. When we were in the minibus, driving to different places. We saw a lot of the landslides across the roads. A lot of roads were shut, so we had to take different routes because of it. There was definitely one place where we had to, we were in like traffic for a while, and all the workers from our bus got off and just started moving the rocks out of the road so we could get past. So obviously happened, like the day before, a few hours before, they definitely, you could see from like the river, how much rain they had, how much stronger the river was than when it normally is.

Natalie Joyce  04:01

So talking about the practical side of the trek. How are things like this planned and managed? How does it all work?

Lily Taylor  04:07

So Weldmar work with a company called Different Travel, who then will go out and basically book everything for you. So Different Travel partnered up with a company called Lima Tours, which is a tour company over in Peru that do a lot of hikes. So our tour guide has done many, many hikes throughout the Andes. He's done the Inca Trail loads of times, the Salkantay Trail, he's done all of them. So he knows exactly what he's doing and where he's going, which is really good, because you never like see him getting out a map or anything. We'll be walking in the middle of nowhere, and he knows exactly where he is and exactly where he's going. And we basically just camp throughout the whole thing. So we're sleeping in pretty bog standard tents. And most of the time the tents were in villages, very small, basic villages. So the toilets some, most of the time we had just, it was like a tent with a little portable toilet in it. We had them cooking in little outback sheds, or they would put up, a marquee kind of thing to cook in there. So it was very, they didn't have ovens or anything, but they were still cooking us incredible meals. One night we had a meal that was inspired by a Chinese takeaway. They made us cake. There was always, like, three courses, which is amazing for them to be just cooking in a shed, and then we'd have our starter, we'd have our main, we'd have our pudding. We'd always be very full up. And they would always be giving us snacks as well, like for all the trips, they would be giving out lots of snacks for us to take with us.

Natalie Joyce  05:37

So you mentioned that you sleep in tents. What happens to your belongings whilst you're on the move?

Lily Taylor  05:41

We had llamas carrying them.

Natalie Joyce  05:43

You had llamas carrying your belongings?!

Lily Taylor  05:45

Yeah, we thought it was gonna, for some reason, I thought it was gonna be horses. There were, some of the heavier stuff horses were carrying, but our actual stuff we had to basically put into, we could only take 8kg, maybe 6 or 7 - around that. We were very confused about how much to take with us, because they kept changing every two seconds. So we had these duffel bags that we'd had to put all of our stuff in, so our clothes for the next day, our sleeping stuff and things like that. And then, yeah, it went on the back of llamas, and the llamas just followed us the whole way around, which is so crazy to see. You'd be hiking in the middle of nowhere, turn around and there's just like a whole herd of llamas carrying everything.

Natalie Joyce  06:28

That's crazy. So it was the same herd of llamas the whole time?

Lily Taylor  06:32

Yeah. So we met them right at the start of the trek. And llamas are kind of like, I suppose, like dogs - there's always a leader. And the two leaders, they had like, dress stuff on, like collars and dress collars and things like that. So you could see which ones the leaders were, and they would take, take right in charge, but the staff, they would make sure that the llamas, if they got annoyed, they weren't allowed to be too close to us or anything. So they couldn't spit at us!

Natalie Joyce  07:00

So you're 1000s of miles away from home, you're camping with a complete group of strangers. What were the group dynamics like? And how did everyone get on?

Lily Taylor  07:09

Luckily everyone got on really, really well. Everyone was so supportive. Because I think everyone was very much there for all sorts of reasons. Some people like the lady Anna, who I was sharing a room with, well tent with! She's done quite a few treks for Weldmar. She's supported them in a lot of things. Beef has done quite a few as well. But a lot of the people were also there because they had lost someone. And Weldmar had supported them. There was a few people that had lost their partners. And so it was all different ages, well I say different ages, I was much younger than the others, but it was still quite a wide range of ages, and everyone's had such different paths of life as well. So it was really nice to actually, like, everyone was very open about talking about their lives and what they have done before, and their families and things, which was really, really nice. And even if people were having down days, there was always someone to help out. So the people from; we had Mr. Kevin, who was from Different Travel, he was so supportive. And he obviously, because he's done so many treks before, he knew how to help people. So he knew when people were having a rough day, what to say and how to make sure he's not being overdoing it or anything like that. There was definitely days where I was not in a good way, and he was so helpful for me, and so was Claire and all of the other people. If someone was struggling, they would be offering to help put their coats on. I had really bad altitude sickness on one of the last days and it started tipping it down. I could not be asked to get my coat out of my bag, so I just stood there, and everyone just put everything on me, and I felt like I was being dressed up. But everyone was just so helpful. I just had to stand there, and I had my coat put on me and my poncho put on me. I didn't have to do anything.

Natalie Joyce  08:53

Wow. So if some of the people were there because they'd lost someone, and they're there obviously because they want to raise money for Weldmar, there must have been times when people were sharing their stories. Was it quite emotional?

Lily Taylor  09:03

Definitely. But whenever people were sharing their stories, it was always in a positive light. Like one man, he had lost his wife recently, and they'd not been married too long, I don't think either, because they were quite young. And he was just talking so positively about her. It was always such inspiring stories to hear about her. So it was always very positive.

Natalie Joyce  09:27

So was there a moment that really tested you physically or mentally?

Lily Taylor  09:31

Definitely, I'm really anxious about food. I'm someone that likes to stick with what I like. I don't like to change anything up. I like to; if I go to a restaurant, I have the same thing every time. So the food was something for me that was more difficult because of the different; it was all just vegetables over there, and I don't like to eat that many vegetables.

Natalie Joyce  09:50

You're vegetarian!

Lily Taylor  09:51

I am a vegetarian. I'm vegetarian that doesn't like to eat much vegetables at all, but over there, obviously, with them cooking in sheds and stuff, mostly. Quorn nuggets were not a thing that they had going in the oven, unfortunately. So the food I found quite anxious. On the first day, I found it all very overwhelming. So I did have a bit of a whoopsie and had a bit of a panic attack over the food, but I had, straight away, had someone right there to help me, which was really, really nice. So that was probably, for me, the biggest struggle. And then on top of that, having the altitude sickness was like, you know when you're ill, you kind of just, you want your bog standard plain food, don't you? You don't want to be eating all these foods that you're not used to. So that was definitely quite a struggle. But I did take, I took loads of bags of Wotsits with me. Every now and then someone would be like, have you got your bag of Wotsits? And I'd be like yeah, pull them out of my bag and eat them. So, yeah, that was probably the altitude sickness and the food was probably my biggest struggle out there. But like I said, everyone was so supportive that I didn't have to worry too much about it.

Natalie Joyce  10:54

That makes perfect sense. So what would be your standout, sort of highlights? What were the best times?

Lily Taylor  11:00

One day on one of the day hikes that we did, we hiked up to a quarry, which was quite funny, because it was boiling hot on this day, I had the patchiest sunburn you could possibly imagine after layering myself up with sun cream. And we were hiking up to this quarry, and we got to the top, and we were like, where's the actual quarry? It was just stones. And so we were a bit like, 'Oh, this is a bit disappointing.' But then the tour guides, they were very, very enthusiastic about their culture, and they wanted to do this like praying to the mountain ceremony, which is something in their culture that's really important to them. They really care about the mountains and things like that. And that was quite emotional for a lot of people. I'd already cried too many times by this point, so I was like, I was like, I will not cry today. And we did that. And it was really, really good, because we basically had to wish for health, basically for our families and friends and things like that. And we prayed to each mountain. Then we found a stone, and we had these cocoa leaves, which we put the leaves down, put the stone on top, and everyone took it in turns and we created, like this little stone mountain in a sense. And then we all took in turns to pour wine over it as well. And then we all kind of just sat there for a minute with it. And then we all hugged each other. And it was a really, really overwhelming situation. It was definitely very emotional. But it was a really nice thing to see not only everyone getting involved, but how important it is to the culture in Peru, and how the Peruvians really see that as such a big thing. It was really nice to be part of that, I would say.

Natalie Joyce  12:29

That genuinely sounds like quite a beautiful moment, it really does.

Lily Taylor  12:33

I think, because we'd also just hiked, it was a very steep incline hike that we had done, and we'd all finally got to the top to then be sat for a moment, and then be like, woo. This is a lot.

Natalie Joyce  12:44

What about phone use? Could you use your mobile phone over there?

Lily Taylor  12:47

Sometimes. When we were in hotels we could, because there was WiFi, but on the actual hike, no.

Natalie Joyce  12:54

Would you miss it?

Lily Taylor  12:55

No, I loved it.

Natalie Joyce  12:56

You just wanted to be in the moment?

Lily Taylor  12:58

Yeah, I think when you're in a place like that. It's like, you know when your computer screen shows up with a nice mountain range? It was like I was in that photo, and you don't want to be sat on your phone in those situations at all. You just want to be with the nature, I suppose. And even, like, you didn't even really need to be listening to music, because it was so nice to just hear all the noises going around, hearing the running water. If you listen out to things, there was one day, on that quarry day, actually, where we're pretty confident that we heard a puma and it was because we were all so quiet. We all heard it and we all kind of looked at each other like did everyone else here just hear that.

Natalie Joyce  13:34

I love it, and it sounds incredible. It genuinely does. So when you signed up for it, what were you aiming to raise financially for Weldmar?

Lily Taylor  13:41

So the goal was £5000 but I was like, there's no way I'll get to that amount. So I was hoping to do at least 3 or 4, and then I would just put the rest in myself. But with the help of my friends and family and local pubs, to be honest, I got to £4500 and then with the Ardonagh donation, on top of that, I reached the £5000 goal, which was amazing. I really did not think I was going to raise that much at all, and it's so incredible to know that I've put that towards helping them.

Natalie Joyce  14:12

Absolutely brilliant. Well done you. I know you put a lot of effort into fundraising. There was loads of events going on. So what's next for you, Lily?

Lily Taylor  14:20

I really want to climb Kilimanjaro. That's what I want to do before I'm 25, it's always been my goal. When I was looking at the Weldmar website, before I signed up for Machu Picchu, is definitely because I've always wanted to climb Kilimanjaro. And when I got home, my mum kind of did some Googling and realised that the height that I was at when I did our peak day was only 1000 metres off Kilimanjaro, which is obviously a lot still, but when I'm already quite far up, it doesn't seem as difficult. And the lady I was sharing a room with, she's already climbed Kilimanjaro, and she said that she found that easier because there was so much more time to acclimatise. So I'm feeling like I could do it, to be honest.

Natalie Joyce  15:04

So before you're 25. So how long have you got?

Lily Taylor  15:06

Four years.

Natalie Joyce  15:07

Four years. 

Lily Taylor  15:08

Four years, yeah.

Natalie Joyce  15:09

Well, good luck. I hope you do it. I'm sure you will. I just want to thank you and say congratulations for your fundraising efforts, and really generous of you to share your story as well. I'm sure it'll inspire others. So if you'd like to learn more about the amazing work Weldmar hospicecare does, visit their website at weldmarhospicecare.org and be sure to follow them on socials for updates and inspiration. And if Lily's story has sparked something in you, why not take a look at their challenge events on the Weldmar website, whether it's a skydive, a wingwalk, an abseil or even a marathon, there are plenty of exciting ways to get involved and support a great cause. To find out more about how RiskSTOP Group supports social responsibility, visit riskstopgroup.co.uk, and don't forget to check out our social channels too. And that's all for this episode of our people at the heart podcast. Thank you to everyone for listening in. I, along with one or two other presenters, will be back soon with all kinds of things to talk about with different guests. So keep your eyes peeled for more episode announcements. And remember, here at RiskSTOP Group, it's all about keeping people safe and secure and believing in social responsibility and sustainability. Until the next time everyone goodbye for now.