The year was 1985. Our family went on a six-week journey to the USA, Holland and England.
On one of our flights with TWA, I was given the tour of the cockpit, and met the crew on the flight deck. It left a massive impression on this nine-year-old.
As we were disembarking from the flight, the captain came to me, and gave me a copy of the flight plan from the journey. He had drawn all over it in colourful textas, marking wind direction and speed, and cloud movement.
He had also penned these words, paraphrasing Augustine of Hippo: 'The world is a great book of which those who never leave home read only a page.' I have never forgotten that quote.
I've had the privilege of a fair amount of travel during my life. Some of it has been tiring, scary, unfamiliar. But this has been a small price to pay for the sounds, sights, smells, tastes and textures of travel.
I did a lot of travel this week, but only as far as central NSW. Nevertheless, the experience brought with it fresh learning, and an appreciation for a place that many people call 'home'.
Travelling is a bitter-sweet experience for me; I miss my home (especially my family), and yet I cherish the experience of being in another place that holds open new possibilities for how I see the world.
Though I am not as well-travelled as some, I've certainly been blessed to open the 'world book' and turn a few extra pages after the flyleaf.
What analogy would you use to describe what vistas travel opens to you?
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1 comment:
It’s always the people mate!
I once travelled in hop skip fashion up through the Pacific from Fiji to the Philippines.
I was fascinated to see the transition. Melanesian ethnic Fijians, who live in the mountainous interior, are shiny black and have very square faces.
Fijians from the eastern islands nearest to Tonga have lighter skin with more Polynesian features.
Both the Fijian blood lines have tight curly black hair.
Rotuma some distance to the North East of Fiji has people of Polynesian appearance with long straight black hair.
Some Solomon Islanders are jet and shiny black - others are dusky coloured like strong white coffee.
The people of Nauru are very large with rounded faces - they look a little unfriendly (who wouldn't be if miners had stripped your country bare).
In Pohnpei, Micronesia the change is striking. These people are Pacific Islanders with some of the features mingled from further south. Their eyes are so striking; olive shaped and sweping upwards to the edges of classic faces. Perhaps these are Asian genes mingling down from the north.
Guam is full of Americans and I saw few Islanders there.
The Philippinos are packed in tight 16m in Manila. Unlike the Pacific Islanders they are small in stature, some with a haunted look. Their jeepnes are decorated like South American cowboys would. While these delightful people are of Asian appearance, culturally they are more like South Americans. (Not surprising I guess. They had four hundred years of Spanish colonial rule.)
Isn't it wonderful that people from all these ethnic origins and so many other races reside here in Australia? What a wonderful gene pool we are developing.
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