TWO friends will enjoy a tropical beach adventure with a difference this year - helping to save endangered leatherback turtles.

Nichola Lynch and Kate Lo will spend two months combing the beaches of Costa Rica during night-time patrols searching for turtle eggs which will be incubated in safe surroundings before the baby animals are released back into the wild.

The women, who met at university, will spend a further three months teaching in the Costa Rican capital, San Jose.

Nichola, 22, of Great Harwood and Kate, 23, of Fulwood, Preston, met while studying French and Spanish at John Moores University, Liverpool.

The adventure is being organised by travel and educational group i-to-i. The women had to raise around £3,000 each to pay for their stay between April and September. The conservation work will involve living in a camp in the Gardoca national wildlife refuge on the Caribbean coast.

"We will be doing overnight patrols along the beach, recovering leatherback sea turtle eggs and hatching them in a safe place until they are ready to be returned to the sea," said Kate. "Everyone talks about it being a holiday but it will be hard work. It will be the chance of a lifetime to do something like this, though, and we're both looking forward to it."

Nichola, who plans to enrol on a teacher training course when she returns, said: "Initially we wanted to go out there to brush up on our Spanish but we wanted to have some support rather than doing it on our own. The conservation work fell into place with it."

The women were given support from a wide range of groups and individuals, including Singers Army Stores, which has shops in Blackburn and Preston and provided outdoor equipment.