Real life Jetting across continents on cheap flights to climb mountains, see the pyramids and swim with sharks sounds like the kind of gap year every teenager dreams of. But amazingly, this adventurer is 74-year-old Maura Ward, who has travelled to 70 countries and taken on a variety of physically demanding challenges to raise over £40,000 for Parkinson’s research.
‘Before I was 61, it was curiosity that drove my travels,’ explains Maura, from Kilkeel, Northern Ireland. ‘I remembered the stories my uncle told me of his journeys all over the world, which gave me itchy feet. I did take my son Johnny, now 40, and daughter Aisling, 41, to France when they were young, but the pivotal moment came in 2007, when Johnny went to Thailand to complete a course…
