He has called it a short walk home but in reality it is an epic adventure.
When army reservist Edward Lloyd Owen finished serving on a six-month United Nations peace-keeping effort in Cyprus he turned down the offer of a flight home and set out on a gruelling 2,800-mile walk across nine countries back to Blighty.
The 34-year-old officer, who grew up in mid Norfolk, took on the challenge to raise money for forces charity Walking With The Wounded and expects to take five months, walking between 20 and 25 miles per day, to reach home soil.
Setting off on March 25 he has completed nearly two thirds of the journey and is currently making his way up the east coast of Italy having already traversed Turkey, Greece and Albania.
Often camping in his tent or hooking up a hammock, he has had to cope with extremes of weather from baking sun to torrential rain to add to the growing aches and pains of constantly pounding the roads.
Captain Lloyd Owen, a reservist with The Royal Wessex Yeomanry, and professional photographer, is also stopping at battlefield commemorations on his way. He has passed through the part of Albania where his grandfather, Major General David Lloyd Owen who commanded the Long Range Desert Group from 1943 to 1945, had operated behind the German lines gathering information during the war.
Speaking from his overnight base near Rimini on Tuesday night he said the trip was proving much harder than he imagined.
'My legs are very sore and it is getting tougher and tougher to get through to the end of each week but I have to get on with it,' he said.
'I hate it every day but at the end of each week it is another 120 miles done and there is no giving up, I just grit my teeth.
'I'm sure I will look back and forget how painful it was.'
He said that thinking about the money he is raising for wounded soldiers spurred him on.
'I have two functioning legs and I can't grumble. There is no room for self-pity.'
Amazingly, despite walking for three months, he is only just about to replace his first pair of boots.
His father Christopher Lloyd Owen, who lives in Great Dunham, flew out to meet his son when he reached Italy. He said it was a 'remarkable' thing to do and not something he envisaged his son achieving when he was growing up at Easton, near Norwich, and Litcham, near Dereham.
'He was a typical slothful teenage boy,' he said. 'But he joined the army and now he is always active and up and about. It is really gruelling physically, walking 20 miles a day for five days without a break. And the heat in Italy has been 32 degrees.
'But the worst thing for him on this walk is being on his own and getting his mental state right when every day is like the one before. We are very proud but also think he is slightly bonkers.'
Edward Parker, co-founder and chief executive of Walking With The Wounded who lives in Melton Constable, described the walk as a 'truly extraordinary undertaking' and asked people to dig deep and sponsor him.
To sponsor Cpt Lloyd Owen visit his fundraising website www.justgiving.com/shortwalkhome, text ASWH99 followed by the amount to 70070 or send a CAF cheque to Ed Lloyd Owen, A Short Walk Home, Hill Farm House, Gt Dunham, Kings Lynn, Norfolk, PE32 2LP.
To follow his progress visit www.shortwalkhome.co.uk.
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