Nottingham woman runs 2,500 miles across Australia in world-record bid

Nikki Love said there was much to see despite Australia's emptiness

A woman has run nearly 2,500 miles (4,023km) across Australia to raise money for an ADHD charity.

Nikki Love, 56, from Nottingham experienced extreme weather and had a "scary" encounter with a dingo while covering the distance from Perth to Sydney in 77 days.

She hopes her feat will be recognised as a Guinness World Record.

Ms Love, who finished the run on Sunday, said it felt "surreal" to have completed the challenge.

The runner, who was born in the UK and grew up in Australia before moving back aged 33, first conceived the challenge 10 years ago.

She decided to take it on while raising money for the ADHD Foundation's Umbrella Project, which offers support and educates people within schools and businesses about neurodiversity.

"For me, coming to Australia was about coming home and running through my home country, but I call the UK home, too," Ms Love said.

"It feels very surreal. I just can't believe really that it's done."

Ms Love said experiencing the perimenopause while she ran had been an additional challenge

Adjudication is taking place to determine whether Ms Love has set the Guinness World Record, and she said it would be "an amazing feeling" if she had.

The keen runner, who covered more than 30 miles (48 km) a day, said she experienced "all the extremes of Australia" from drought and rain to freezing-cold early starts.

"It was wild and it was exactly what I thought Australia was, or knew of, being the country that I grew up in," she said.

"It's empty, but there's so much to look at, so it was just a spectacle to watch."

She also encountered the Australian wildlife, with a dingo running alongside her for about two or three kilometres, she said.

"It was following its own line and I was following my line, and I kept watching to make sure it didn't veer towards me - it was both an amazing experience, but also scary, but incredible."

Ms Love ran while experiencing perimenopause, the transitional period before a woman reaches menopause, which she said had been "emotional".

"I have my ups and downs, and at certain phases of the months I'm more emotional, but they tend to be times I feel physically weaker and I've tended to be more injured during those times," she said.

"It was never an excuse."

Ms Love finished her run at Bondi Beach