A PART-TIME military medic from Hampshire is back from her adventures in 18 countries.

Territorial Army medical officer Major Katharine Hartington covered 11,600 miles from Cambridge to Cape Town with 32 members of the officer training corps from Cambridge University, in a convoy of white ex-Army Arctic warfare Land Rovers.

Braving extreme heat and difficult road conditions, the ten-week route took them through Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Egypt.

Major Hartington was team medical officer for the first half of the tour from Cambridge to Kenya.

As well as training members of 101 Engineer Regiment, the adventure raised more than £5,000 for the children's hospice movement.

Dr Hartington was asked to take part as a former member of the university training corps.

Dr Hartington, 34, of Wickham, near Fareham, was an accident and emergency hospital doctor at Portsmouth and Southampton. She is now at North Hampshire District Hospital.

She said: "It was a fantastic opportunity to see all the countries as they really are by travelling through them. It was also good to be part of a team of young, enthusiastic undergraduates who took on the challenge.

"I had to treat one of the team for acute medical appendicitis in rural Uganda, which was a big challenge.

Since leaving the officer training corps, Dr Hartington has been a member of the Territorial Army for the only bomb disposal unit in the Territorial Army and joins in explosive detonation training as well as carrying out medical duties.