Walking and Wheeling with MS

Maureen Corrigan likes to write and she likes to travel. For the second time she’s combined these passions into a book. Walking and Wheeling Tales is a collection of stories pulled from all over the globe. It’s full of misadventures, triumphs, laughs, frustrations, and even a little wisdom.

Maureen scooting along on the Freycinet Peninsula track

The book spans five decades and as many continents. We begin in Tasmania, tacklings walks along the Freycinet peninsula and around Lake Saint Clair. Nearly fifty years later, still active despite a diagnosis of MS, Maureen is sitting in a gondola zooming up the Swiss Alps. Soon she will reach the snowy summit of the Schilthorn, one proud peak among many overlooking the rocky valleys. In the intervening years, Maureen has been just about everywhere, whether it be Greenland on her trusty mobility scooter, or Japan which she found intriguing, or Sicily where the trains weren’t always on time.

Even in Covid times her appetite for adventure remains strong. She takes her walker out every day, discovering patches of unexpected greenery in her hometown of Port Melbourne. She hopped aboard the Spirit of Tasmania, wheeled along boardwalks around The Hazards mountains. She took a road trip to the Sunshine Coast via Sydney and Taronga Zoo. Suffice to say, Maureen has been meeting the twin challenges of Covid and MS quite well.

But it hasn’t all been smooth sailing. Lockdowns are the enemy of plans. And even when those plans go ahead, travelling with a mobility aid requires resilience and a certain amount of improvisation. It can be exasperating, but for Maureen, it’s also part of the fun.

‘Things come up and you have to think on your feet,’ she says. ‘It can be exciting.’

Maureen uses a Luggie Scooter on her travels. Her first one lasted a surprising 8 years, during which time it suffered bumps and scrapes, even a missing wheel, but it took her where she needed to go. Its lightweight frame, foldability, and manoeuvrability make it ideal for transportation in a plane or car boot. Or, apparently, boardwalks in Iceland.

Maureen’s book Walking and Wheeling Tales is published by the Shawline Publishing Group and can be found at all major online retailers. Visit her website at www.maureentcorriganauthor.com.au/ .