Looking Back

As a child I was taught about lots of different places, people and times in geography and history. It gave me, and many others, a vision of travel as an opportunity to explore and learn about new cultures and to see new places. That vision has never left me, despite the modern reality of travel as stressful, crowded and fractious where people travel to new places to drink copious amounts of alcohol and seemingly avoid learning anything at all!

My Dad was in the Diplomatic Wireless Service and before I was 5 we had lived in India, Pakistan and Singapore. I had racked up thousands of miles of flying in my first three years. When we left Singapore we took a boat to Australia called the Centaur, where we disembarked at Perth and then a boat back from Sydney, Australia to the UK via the Pacific Islands, the Panama Canal, Mexico and the US. That was definitely the longest journey I ever took by water. I have vague memories of the trip, with the Panama Canal and the Pacific Islands chief among them. I also remember Acapulco where a band played La Cucuracha. That tune stuck in my head and when we learnt that song in one of the Singing Together terms I recognised it immediately. I can’t remember if I told other children that I remembered it, because I learnt very early on that they thought you were either lying or showing off when you said things like that.

Since those days I have travelled to the US twice, lived in Japan, Hong Kong and Saudi Arabia and returned to Australia three times, twice for long enough to feel like a local and to do a Masters degree. In all, I have been round the planet three or four times and I hope that my travels are not yet finished.