He set off from London in a camper van with a sign in the back window that said 'AUSTRALIA OR BUST'. He literally drove across Europe and Asia through many countries including Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, India and then later sold his van to get across the water to Australia and New Zealand. He has so many tales of the amazing people he met and their cultures, weddings he got invited to, places he worked and where he camped out. I found his tales fascinating and I only wish that he had had a better camera with him!
He always enjoyed telling me about how he lived on pancakes cooked on a fire by the side of the road, to this day its pretty much all he can cook! He spent some time in Australia working with a New Zealander called Bodge Wallingford, a name that conjured up an image of fun and excitement for me as a child. I never really thought I would track Bodge down in New Zealand many years later, but I did and together we had a beer and caught up on what life had been like for them both since their adventures in the Australian outback...As soon as I had finished school I saved just enough money to fly to Los Angeles and spent a few months circumnavigating the country on Greyhound buses. Having just 20 USD to live on each day meant that I walked everywhere, stayed in some interesting hostels and got to see every aspect of this amazing country. There were times when I wished I had bought an Amtrak ticket or better still a flight between cities, such as when my Greyhound pulled up outside a rather large prison on release day and picked up all the newly released inmates. I loved America for its people, beautiful landscapes and exciting cities. I came home with my eyes wide open.
Some time later my husband Rob and I travelled to Sri Lanka, a country which was unlike anywhere I had been before, truly beautiful and astonishing in so many ways. Rob had spent a year in Africa living in a mud hut and teaching English in Zimbabwe and travelled through many of the countries. He had always wanted to go to New Zealand… So off we went, initially for the snowboard season but to then travel and work as 'WWOOF'ers which back then meant 'Willing Workers on Organic Farms'. The organisation is now 'Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms'. We worked for 4 hours each day and were rewarded with amazing experiences, food and a bed!We were lucky to find work on a sheep farm in the most spectacular place on the eastern peninsula called Akaroa. Sue, the farmer, was on her own and relied on volunteers spending a few weeks with her. We did everything from baking, cleaning, painting, grubbing thistles from the hillsides, sheering, herding the sheep and moving an entire herd of cattle through the village. My job that day was to run ahead and close everyone's gates to their front garden! I realised very quickly what a tough existence it was but the rewards were plentiful. We picked our salad for lunch out of the vegetable patch and dug up our potatoes for dinner. We were miles from the modern world and we got up when it was light and went to bed when it got dark, I loved the simplicity of it and we were sad to leave the farm and Sue.
We also found work at a hostel/hotel in another beautiful place called Glenorchy, which is just down the road from an aptly named place called Paradise and 40 minutes drive from the adrenaline fuelled town of Queenstown. It was different work here but still outdoors and the owners were extremely kind to us.
For the rest of our time in New Zealand we travelled, walked through the miles of forests, kayaked around the north coast and generally enjoyed the peace and beauty of the islands. I loved the south island so much and some of my fondest memories are from here, however we found a beach 'Rarawa' on the north east coast of the north island that was total paradise. The sand was white and littered with the most beautiful shells and as we body boarded in on the crystal clear waves fish surfed in with us. We had the whole beach to ourselves and it was magical.
I couldn't resist trying to track down my dads old pal Bodge and I knew he had lived Auckland so before we left I trawled through the phone directory and phoned all 'Wallingfords' until I found his sister. Bodge had lived and worked in Thailand since the 70s but he was in Auckland visiting family that week. It was a stroke of luck and I loved being able to meet this character from my childhood.
We spent some time in Australia as backpackers, taking buses up the east coast then along the Great Ocean Road and up into the red desert. We had an amazing time but it just made me realise that I needed to one day go back and do all the places on the west coast that we didn't get to! Camping out in the red desert was quite an experience having always been a little squeamish when it came to insects and these were certainly overgrown ones but I soon found a love for the 'Thorny Devil' the cutest little lizard.
Our travels to New Zealand and Australia gave us the opportunity to see so many animals in their natural habitat; orca, dolphins, blue whales, penguins, koalas, kangaroos, snakes…. too many to mention! Certainly the best place to find dangerous creatures was Fraser Island off the east coast of Australia!
There is so much of the world I would love to see and I feel lucky to have travelled to the places I've been in Europe and further afield, but now I'm the parent recounting tales of far off lands to my own children and I know its not a question of when they will go travelling but where! I look forward to listening to their tales one day.
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