I'm lucky to have had cancer as it led me to unexpected adventures
A grandfather feels "lucky" to have got cancer - because it forced him to give up work and spend his savings travelling 100,000 miles around the world in his van.
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00:00My name is Tony. I live in Bristol and behind me is my trusty steed, my transit van.
00:14In 2011 we done a charity run to Mongolia and whilst I was in Mongolia I'm thinking
00:24I wonder how far we could go with a vehicle over land. So when we got back from Mongolia
00:31a challenge to go to drive to Australia. Unfortunately in 2012 I was diagnosed with
00:39lung cancer and then to top it off, brain tumours. I had put the Australian trip on hold
00:48but in between I've done numerous challenges. The first one was a cheese challenge for the
00:54Wallace and Gromit appeal. I then moved 66th in Canada. Then we did an arctic circle
01:00visiting that land en route. I planned to go to Japan in 2022. Took the van up to the Finnish
01:09border in 2021. Left it there over the Christmas. Went back in February. It was the same week as
01:16what they started the war and they wouldn't let us into Russia so we had to make other plans.
01:22So we ended up in North Africa. When we got back from Africa I'd done a trip from Land's End to
01:30John O'Groats and then John O'Groats back to Land's End around the up the west coast and
01:38back down the east coast. That lasted about six weeks covering 6,000 miles. But yeah Laos was
01:45my favourite place I think. To Africa we stopped on the Ukraine border and picked up a refugee
01:54and her dog. We had to take our passports and driving licence into a checkpoint and they
02:01matched us with a young girl and her dog because we only had three seats. We can only take like
02:07three passengers. It was a bit emotional. We reunited her with her husband in Poland.
02:18She had a little bag and a big bag and the big bag was so heavy I couldn't even carry it but
02:26she managed to. She had three lifts from wherever she came from in Ukraine to the border
02:36carrying this big bag and it was like all she had in her bag was her sewing machine
02:40and in her little bag all she had was like dog food for her little dog
02:45and some of her like little possessions and then we carried on our journey to North Africa.