SISTERS who cycled 250 miles from Nicaragua to Costa Rica as part of a team supporting Bradford’s Marie Curie hospice have helped raise thousands of pounds.

Claire Macina, from Ilkley, and Sue Elliott, from Idle, along with two others in their team, arrived in la Fortuna de San Carlo on Saturday.

They completed a gruelling week’s ride through stunning scenery in Central America which included getting to the top of Cost Rica’s most active volcano, the Arenal.

It was the latest challenge in aid of the hospice by the sisters, who have previously pedal powered their way through Cambodia, Vietnam and India.

Their other sisters, Jeanette Sunderland, who is leader of Bradford’s Liberal Democrat party, and Adele Wilkin, also from Bradford, did not join them this time but are taking the plunge in June by signing up for the Great North swim on June 11 across Windermere, England’s largest lake.

The sisters have taken up the challenges as a way of saying thank you to the hospice in Maudsley Street, which helped them and their mum Sheila Morris who had day therapy and palliative care there before she died aged 73 in August 2011.

“We raise money for the Marie Curie Hospice in Bradford because it’s such an amazing place It was important to our beautiful, wonderful mum and it is still important to us,” said Cllr Sunderland.

She added: “I’m incredibly proud of my sisters who arrived in Costa Rica exhausted but happy and are having a little break before coming home. It’s a huge achievement.”

Adrian Long and Sandra Scarlett, both from Ilkley, were also on the recent Costa Rica Cycle Challenge - altogether they have made just more than £15,000 for the Bradford hospice.

The total amount made nationally on the challenge tipped the £100,000 mark. In November, a team of 28 from Bradford will be heading for Costa Rica once again but this time their challenge will be on foot. Contact Sharon Link on 01274 386197 or email sharon.link@mariecurie.org.uk.