It was a rare dry day in February when Michelle MacDonald first started walking.

A day when the winter winds had suddenly dropped and the skies had broken open in a burst of clear blue calm.

It had only been a few months since she had lost her daughter Ellie to cancer, that unforgiving brutal disease that had attacked her "shy, modest girl" with her "beautiful inner strength".

Ellie, who loved the colour purple, who had climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and kayaked across Scotland, had been taken from her.

Michelle walked on. Maybe she would keep walking, step after step, hour after hour. Maybe if she kept going she wouldn't have to turn back.

"How many miles do I need to walk before I feel better?" she thought to herself. "One thousand, ten thousand, a million?"

She settled on a million. She really didn't believe that any number of miles would really make her feel better.

This was her second child she had lost to cancer. The second time she was facing this feeling.

But surely that big a number of miles was still a huge challenge?

Michelle returned home, her thoughts whirling. She took out a calculator and started adding up.

How many miles would she need to do each day if she lived until she was 60, 70, 80?

It looked impossible. She was already approaching her 50th birthday and she simply didn't have enough time left to fit all those miles in.

Feeling disheartened, she set off again on her walk from the house.

But then her mind shifted gear. What if she did not need to do a million miles on her own? What if Ellie's friends and their friends, Michelle's friends and their friends, helped her?

Maybe strangers could take part as well?

It could be called "One Million Miles for Ellie" thought Michelle. One million pounds for those touched by cancer.

Cancer, after all, was something that had blighted the life of Michelle's own family too many times.

Ellie has been in her final year at the University of St Andrews when she was diagnosed with bowel cancer.

It was shortly before Christmas, December 2013, but Michelle was with her every step of the way.

Just a decade earlier, she had gone through the same fight when she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

She had been pregnant at the time, with a little boy, but doctors told her that in order to save her life it meant losing her son.

When breast cancer returned in 2007, Michelle endured a second mastectomy but got through it again with support from all her family.

"I was with Ellie when she was told she had cancer. She took it so well," says Michelle, 51.

"Her mum had got over it twice so why shouldn't she? I would have given her my life in a second but it doesn't work that way."

Instead, she watched and supported Ellie as her daughter went through the same battle her mother had, this time with an enemy that seemed to have grown stronger.

Despite every treatment and hope, Michelle could only watch as her strong young daughter fought with everything she had, refusing to let her adventurous spirit be knocked back by the disease.

Ellie was determined to pack in as much as she could into her final months.

She graduated from university, went kayaking with her dad, jumped for joy on a Spanish beach with her boyfriend Robert Przepiorka, and wrote a bucket list of ten wishes which included as number one a determination to "destroy cancer."

But the cancer had spread to Ellie's liver and on September 18, 2014, just weeks after her graduation, she died at the age of 23 at Ninewells hospital in Dundee, surrounded by her family.

"To lose a child under any circumstances is hard to come to terms with," says Michelle.

"To lose a child to a disease that has blighted our family twice and taken a child already is unbearable."

Ellie's funeral was held in her home of North Uist and her mother made sure her favourite colour was everywhere that day.

From the clothes the mourners wore to the heather, lavender and thistles which filled the kayak she had loved so much.

When Ellie's coffin passed Paible Primary school where she had once been a pupil, all of her brother Alexander's classmates were lined up like a guard of honour in the playground.

Ellie was buried next to her brother John Joseph, the baby her mother had lost during her own cancer battle.

"I was devastated and lost and was given the space by my family to cry and cry and do little else," says Michelle.

"But this was not sustainable nor healthy emotionally, physically or for those still living."

Instead Michelle took to walking and landed on that fateful day when the skies shone blue and her idea for a one million miles campaign took hold.

Last summer, Michelle stood staring up at the sky once more as she watched hundreds of purple balloons soar through the blue in tribute to Ellie.

Ellie's father, Angus stood beside her, as did Ellie's brothers Fraser, 23, and Alexander, 11, and sister Sarah, 19.

They were there to remember Ellie - and to start a campaign in her memory - One Million Miles for Ellie was officially launching.

That was 74188 miles and more than £70,000 ago. It has been a year of milestones since that day and more goals continue to be reached.

People from across Scotland have been taking up challenges to raise funds for the campaign and on October 29, more than 100 students are set to walk from Cambo Estate in Fife to Castle Sands in St Andrews to support Michelle's cause in memory of her daughter.

Her family will retrace Ellie's footsteps and participants will also be encouraged to collect some stones on the walk to add to a cairn which will be created as a tribute to Ellie on the beach at Castle Sands.

"Ellie was so precious to all our family and meant everything to me," says Michelle.

"Ellie made a bucket list before she died and it was packed full of adventurous plans. It showed how she really believed anything was possible."

All funds raised from the campaign are set to go to three vital cancer charities; Cancer Research, Maggie's Centre and MacMillan Cancer Support and Michelle is confident that with help she will be able to reach her million mile goal.

"Even if I started as a baby and lived a long life I know I couldn't walk a million miles alone but that distance could be covered with the help of people across Scotland and across the world," says Michelle.

"I don't need to do this on my own as I believe together we can beat cancer.

"That w ill be my tribute to Ellie."

You can follow Michelle's journey here on the One Million Miles for Ellie page.