A nurse is gearing up to ride across Cuba to raise funds for a health charity close to her heart.

Lynda Hind has spent the past 16 as years a specialist neurological nurse based at Kelling Hospital in Holt and Benjamin Court at Cromer, dealing with patients with Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis and motor neurone disease.

The 56-year-old from Cawston also mans a Parkinson's helpline to provide advice and support for patients and families.

She has done adventurous fund-raising for charities in the past - trekking the Great Wall of China in 2009 and the Sierra Nevada last year to raise more than �8,000 for Parkinson's UK .

Mrs Hind has also walked the Machu Picchu trail in South America in 2006 to raise �6,500 for the MS trust, which will also benefit from a parachute jump she is planning on June 4 after signing up following 'a couple of glasses of wine' at a conference.

But her next big charity event is a 300km bike ride across southern Cuba in November - across some tough hilly terrain.

'When I took semi-retirement colleagues I bought a bike with my farewell collection and thought I had better do something with it,' she explained.

'I went on holiday to Cuba earlier this year - it should have been last year but the volcanic ash stopped us. The land was fairly flat where we were in Havana and Varadero, but this is hilly.

'We have been advised to train on steep hills - but that is not easy in Norfolk , so I have joined a gym and plan to do some cycle spinning,' said Mrs Hind.

The route starts at the famous Bay of Pigs and, over five days, and heads through Cienfuegos and Trinidad to finish in Santa Clara at the memorial to revolutionary Che Guevara.

Mrs Hind's retirement bike is just being used for the training sessions, but she will be able to take her saddle to Cuba if she chooses.

To boost the fund raising Linda is staging another of her regular variety charity nights. The show at Holt's Auden Theatre on Saturday May 28 features local acts including comics Keith Loads and Pat Nearney, dialect songster Danny Platton, poet Doreen Reed, and the Sam Smiths barbershop singers. Tickets for the 7.30pm show are �7.50 from the box office on 01263 71344.

To make other donations contact Mrs Hind on 01603 879135.