Mother of Chris Nelson set to cycle across Scotland in emotional tribute to his memory

But her search was in vain.

The body of Chris was pulled from a canal early last month, just feet from the bench she had been strangely drawn to throughout her hunt.

It’s believed the 24-year-old lost his footing on the slippery pavement and plunged into the dark water one night in November.

Now, despite her heartrending loss, loving mum Donna is getting set to cycle across Scotland in an emotional tribute to his memory.

Just weeks after his funeral, she is preparing for a gruelling bike ride from Edinburgh to Iona.

And she believes she’ll be accompanied on every mile of the way by the loving spirit of her lost son, egging her on.

“I know he’ll be behind me the whole way,” she said. “I’ll hear him saying ‘I believe in you. You can do it’.

“But I also know that the tears will be flowing.

“It will be such an emotional journey.”

Donna, 45, is planning to take on the Celtic Challenge, a 200-mile cycle ride organised by St Columba’s Hospice in Edinburgh, in May – even though she doesn’t like cycling and doesn’t even own a bike!

She is hoping that Chris’s much loved racing bike can be specially adapted so she can use that for the challenge, making her journey even more poignant.

“I don’t have a bike and I really don’t like cycling,” said Donna, from Eskbank near Dalkeith.

“But there was something about this challenge that ‘spoke’ to me. I have to do it.

“He would have found this really funny. Any time we went to Center Parcs as a family and had to hire bikes to get around, I’d be complaining about it. I hated it.

“The idea of me cycling anywhere – never mind this – would have had him in stitches.”

Chris had been staying with his girlfriend Stephanie Kollross in Dortmund when they decided to visit friends in Amsterdam in mid November.

He had struggled to sleep, and nipped out for a short stroll early one morning. Before he left, he texted Donna to say how much he was looking forward to moving back to Scotland later this year.

At first it was hoped he’d simply lost his way back to the flat in the popular Nieuwmarkt area of the city.

After all, it was his first visit to the Dutch capital, the weather was stormy and he didn’t know his way around.

Soon, though, panic set in that something awful had happened.

At home in Eskbank, Donna and husband Scott, also 45, were convinced that he wouldn’t have intentionally just disappeared.

And when police in Amsterdam raised the question of whether he might just yet another tourist who had over-indulged in the city’s attractions, Donna just knew that wasn’t her son.

“He had everything to look forward to,” she said. “He was getting married, he adored his girlfriend Stephanie. They were coming to see us and he was going to tell his sisters that they were coming back to Scotland to live here.

“He was homesick and wanted to be back in Scotland. But there was no reason for him to go missing.”

Donna, who is chief executive for Lothian-based charity Pasda, which works with families of adults with autism, dashed to Amsterdam to join the search only to despair at the lack of emergency she found among the authorities.

“I was told by the police that 50 people, mostly tourists, go missing in Amsterdam every year. It felt like Chris was just another number.

“I didn’t want that to happen. I turned into a lioness. I went to the media and got the mayor involved. They started to realise that I wasn’t going away until I found my son.”

While police eventually upgraded their search, Donna launched her own heartbreaking hunt, trekking for miles around Amsterdam’s streets.

She even bravely ventured into dangerous alleyways at night to quiz rough sleepers groggy from drug use, gently removing their dirty blankets to peek at their faces just in case one might be her missing son.

As each day past, she found herself strangely drawn ever more towards the same seat beside one of Amsterdam’s many canals.

Little did she know that right then, she was closer to her lost son than at any time during her desperate search.

“I kept returning to the same place. It wasn’t far from the flat where Chris had been staying,” she recalled.

“I’d sit there thinking about him and wondering what had happened.”

Sadly Chris was just feet away, his lifeless body wedged between rocks and a floating houseboat.

It’s now thought he paused at the spot on his morning walk and either slipped or tripped into the water, perhaps knocking his head on the way.

Despite being a good swimmer, the currents in the canal are strong. Stormy weather at the time meant the water was even more turbulent than usual.

His death has devastated mum Donna, husband Scott and Chris’s two sisters, Rebecca, 23, and Abby, who’s just 11.

“We’re absolutely broken,” said Donna. “Chris was a wonderful son who adored his sisters. He was looking forward to so much, he and Stephanie were so excited about coming back to Scotland to live. He was planning to work offshore like his dad and had done all his offshore survival training.

“He had everything ahead of him.”

Donna was scrolling through messages of support on her social media page when she spotted an appeal for people to take part in the Celtic Challenge, which takes cyclists from Edinburgh to Glasgow, past Loch Lomond, Inveraray, Oban, across to the Isle of Mull and then Iona, where St Columba founded his monastery in AD 563.

It immediately resonated with Donna as the family often visited Iona, camping out together and enjoying the stunning scenery, laying down precious memories.

“It felt like it was a message,” added Donna, who has set up a just giving page in the hope of raising £1,200 for the hospice.

“I knew I had to go for it.”

Now she is training on an exercise bike at her local gym while she waits to see if her son’s old bike can be fixed to suit her.

“Some days are harder than others,” she added. “But I’m determined to do this.

“I know that Chris will be there, encouraging me, the whole way.”

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To support Donna in her cycle ride, go to www.justgiving.com/DonnaNelson1
To find out more about the Celtic Challenge, visit www.stcolumbashospice.org.uk/celticchallenge/