Two friends are taking on the challenge of swimming from Essex to Norfolk as they aim to raise money for charities close to their hearts.

Richard Bland and Nick Roberts, from Shotley Peninsula, are taking on the swim on Monday but instead of swimming around the coast, they will be swimming the river estuaries starting in Manningtree and finishing up in Lowestoft.

They even have the Royal Harwich Yatch Club support to help them as they cross the shipping lanes across the mouth of the Stour and Orwell.

They will be raising money in sponsorship for Mind, Blood Cancer UK and Beats as family and close friends have experiences linked to these causes.

The pair will set off from Wrabness in Essex at 8am and head for the River Stour at Harkstead where they will then swim the River Orwell to Nacton.

The duo will then swim down the Deben from Waldringfield to Ramsholt, followed by the Alde.

The last stretch of the 10km swim will see the two cross Oulton Broads and are hoping to finish at around 9pm having swum for around four hours as well as driving between the locations.

Mr Roberts said: "It is something that we have had in our minds. We both do open swimming, typically we do it in the River Stour and whilst we were chatting it kind of came up as a bit of a challenge as to whether it would be possible to cover it all in a day.

"We are both close to the causes that we are raising money for so we always knew they would be a good point for doing it and a target to reach.

"We have had some fantastic help from Royal Harwich RNLI as we will need some boat support for the two big estuaries the Stour and the Orwell as both of them have shipping lanes.

"They are providing us with a support launch boat to make sure we are safe crossing the shipping lanes."

The pair have set up a fundraising page for the swim.