Tilly and Tuker, where the idea began
We are just a small family from Cardenden, Fife, Scotland looking to make a huge difference to an amazing charity “Ellen Macarthur Cancer Trust”. Myself (Stacey), partner Bobby and our two teenagers Becca and Dechlan are not new to adventures. In the past we have traveled into Europe in our old motorhome Ruby (1996 Fiat Ducato). From the winding mountainous roads of the Alps and Dolomites to the glorious fruit farms across Germany and France, we have witnessed some spectacular views. Its now time to witness some more, this time in our own country. With much sadness we waved goodbye to Ruby in October last year as she left to make more memories with her new owner. In an excited haste we decided to purchase an Indian Tuk-tuk (Tilly) and set ourselves a charity challenge. There was no doubt in my mind what charity we would want to do this for.
As a 24 year old who had been giving a devastating cancer diagnoses, it was hard to pick life back up after my treatment. When I was given the opportunity to go on a sailing trip with the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust I felt a sense of excitement that I hadn’t felt since prior to my cancer diagnoses. On my trip I was made to feel so welcome. Every young person there had also had to deal with a cancer diagnoses, treatment and its side effects. Something that sticks with me was the instant respect, understanding and bond that formed and this was before I had even spoke to anyone. The week was just incredible; fun, engaging, and full of new life experiences. I remember coming away feeling like I was on-top of the world and I could conquer anything. My belief in myself was back, my confidence, my motivation for life was there and suddenly I had a new family. I never stop speaking about it. I returned for a further weekend trip at a residential in Essex, again I got the same if not more from this trip. I then became a volunteer for the Trust, which I still do to this day. I get the pleasure of witnessing many young children between the age of 8-24 get to experience the magic of the trust. I see first hand the changes in each child or young person from the first day to the last day of their trip. I get a huge sense of gratitude to the trust for allowing me to still be apart of the amazing work they do, so even now the trust still impacts me in a positive way. Unfortunately, due to a lack of awareness and funding, lots of children and young people are missing an opportunity to be supported by this amazing charity. This is why we have chosen to support them on this challenge. In order to raise as much funds and awareness as possibly we had to find a challenge that would do this but also push us personally both mentally and physically. So here it is;
We aimed to take TIlly on a 1500 mile adventure around the full coastline of mainland Scotland as well as across the Scottish border. We soon realized that one tuktuk just wasn’t going to be enough. We thought what better way to make an impression than travel in convoy in two Indian tuktuks. This is when the search began for another tuk-tuk. As fate would have it, the tuk-tuk available within our budget was blue and white, the exact colours of the trust. This is where Tuker joined our team. Our journey will set off from Kirkcaldy fife on (date to be finalised). We aim to do a mix of wild camping aswell as campsites. We will be travelling with all our camping equipment and no support vehicle. We are hoping that we will have the opportunity to stop off at various locations. This will allow us to give people the opportunity to experience a ride in the tuktuk in return for a small donation to the charity. Myself and Bobby have never driven a tuk-tuk before so we will need plenty of practice to increase our confidence. The tuk-tuks maximum speed is 40mph, busy roads, narrow roads and hill roads will require a high level of concentration, making this extremely challenging. Becca will be responsible for updating our Tiktok and other social media channels and Dechlan will be capturing our adventure on drone footage.
I plan to blog as we go through the challenge so please keep an eye on our blog post for in-depth details of our trip. The ups and downs, the laughter and tears but most off all the encounters we hope to have whilst raising awareness and funds. You can also support us on all media channels using the links below and don’t forget to tag us in any photos or videos. If you can donate using the link below but most importantly we hope you enjoy coming along with us and please share share share to get awareness out there.
I will finish off by inviting you all to watch the below video which details my journey with Hodgkins lymphoma and Aplastic Anemia. I made this video after all my treatments were over. I had also just finished off raising funds for my hospital ward. You will see there are clips of me on my trips with the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust in this video.
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