My Travels
I’m the eldest of 12 children. Growing up in such a large household meant lots of noise; to escape, I read everything I could get my hands on. Books became windows into other lands but as I grew older, I wanted to experience those places first-hand. Thus began my love of travel.
My first physical trip away from Sydney was to Rockhampton, in 1965-1966. This was a traumatic time for me because it was where my son was born, and relinquished, but it did instil in me a love of new places, a desire to learn about other people and other ways of living.
Late in 1966, I married and moved to Ballarat in Victoria. I lived there for 2 years; my eldest daughter was born there. Sydney and family drew me back to Sydney, where I remained until 1973, 3 years after my second, and youngest daughter, was born. In that year, my husband and I separated. I met up with a man I’d grown up with and the next three years saw us travelling together and living in a caravan. We spent time in Cairns, Karumba (in the Gulf of Carpentaria), Mt Isa and Streaky Bay and saw many of the places in between. Work in those days was easy to find and I worked as a nurse, a cleaner and a cook.
We returned to Sydney in 1976 but could not settle to life there, so we moved to Cairns, which was still a small country town then and a place we thought would be ideal to bring up a family.
My husband died in 1977, when we were still in Cairns. In 1978 we had the opportunity to travel to Darwin, where we worked for one year selling encyclopaedias for World Book. (From there, I took my first overseas holiday, to Noumea, and loved it. I also travelled to Tasmania for a conference.) That year earned us enough to put a deposit on a home in Cairns, where we returned to live for the next 10 years.
In 1988, we moved to the south coast of NSW. My partner sold his trawlers (he fished in season, and worked in tin and gold mines out of season), and he was considering going into partnership with his brother. We stayed there for 6 months, and then decided to buy another caravan and do some more travel. We hadn’t seen the west of Australia so set off for Perth.
My partner found a job in a gold mine near Meekatharra, later moving to another just out of Southern Cross, south of Kalgoorlie. We bought a home in Joondalup, just north of Perth, and I began my university degree there while my partner worked at the mine on a fly-in, fly-out basis. (Work for 2 weeks, fly home for 1 week.) From Perth, I took a couple of trips east to see my family, in Brisbane and Sydney, and also travelled to Tasmania again for another conference and to Adelaide for a writers’ festival.
Sadly, my partner was killed in a mining accident in 1995. Having made a lot of friends in Perth, I decided to stay there, and continued on with my university degree. When I graduated, in 1996, I treated myself to an overseas holiday. My two daughters joined me and we backpacked through Germany, Switzerland, Italy and France. As well as my backpack, I took my trusty laptop, and my video camera, to record everything in words and in pictures. Flying over to London, we took things a bit easier and travelled by hire-car through the British Isles. My youngest daughter loved it so much, she stayed on working in Scotland for a year after her sister and I returned home. (My husband, their father, was born in Scotland so my daughters are lucky enough to have British passports.)
Later in the 90's I went to New Zealand for my niece’s wedding. While there, I took a bus tour of the south island. I also contracted meningitis! Despite this, I continued with my plan to try railway travel and took the Indian Pacific from Sydney to Perth; a great way to see the country.
Since moving back to Queensland, I’ve travelled back to Perth, to Tasmania, and many times to Sydney, where half of my family still live. (The rest are scattered from the Atherton tablelands near Cairns to Tully, to Mackay, to Gympie, and down to Melbourne!) In September 2001, I travelled via Amtrak over the United States with a friend, Anni, from Perth and in 2005 I went to Norfolk Island with one of my sisters for a writers and readers festival.
In 2006, I spent 3 months in the UK. I bought myself a car so that I could travel more easily to the places I wanted to visit. My main aim was to do some family research, my parent's families having come to Australia from England and Ireland. I also taught for 3 weeks at Chester University - teaching English to Italian, Greek and Spanish students at a summer school. From the UK I flew to Italy, where I also spent 3 months. The first month I lived in a little mountain village, Poppi, where I immersed myself in a language course. It was wonderful and I would like to go back there one day soon. I followed that with a month's stay in a Tuscan cottage, set in the middle of olive groves and grape vines. My final month was spent in a loft apartment right in the heart of Florence.
Before I left for my trip in 2006 I signed up at an internet site that matches language learners - I was looking for a native Italian speaker who would teach me Italian in return for my teaching them English. The day before I left Florence to return home, I received a reply from a lovely young lady who lives near Bologna. It was too late for us to meet physically at that time but from that time on we skyped each other twice a week, for up to 2 hours each time. She and her husband kindly offered a room in their home to me so this year, 2007, I went back to Italy for a couple of months - August to late October. I travelled via Perth so I could catch up with friends there, and then went on to Rome and then to Bologna. I spent some lovely long weeks with my friends and their families and they showed me many places that the tourists don't get to see. I feel blessed to have met such wonderful people.
Of course, I write about my travels - and keep a journal - but I don't send much of this out for publication. I also bring back a small suitcase of papers – tickets, menus, newspapers, magazines, artwork, and books and so on – so I have plenty of material for my fictional writing.
As soon as I arrive home from a trip, I'm ready to begin planning my next! I have no idea where my gypsy inclinations come from, but I imagine that I’ll keep travelling, finding new places, and meeting strangers who will become friends until I'm too infirm to go anywhere.