Mother (3rd from right) in Australia waiting for her hot air balloon ride |
To get ready for the trip, mother purchased a pink Barbie backpack - one made for children. She was only 5'1" tall so a child's pack fit her perfectly. Next came Tilly clothing - 2 sets, plus a Tilly hat. Adding socks and underwear, a few toiletries, and an extra pair of shoes, mother declared herself ready. She fit everything she needed into that backpack and booked her trip.
Here are her own words from her trip journal with some editing for brevity:
As my 80th birthday was
only a year away I thought it wise to go somewhere that I knew for the first
trip alone. I could then branch out with
confidence. My first trip was on a tour
for 20 days to Australia and New Zealand.
I flew from Toronto to Vancouver then to Hawaii, then to New
Zealand. I had been in touch with a cousin
who lived near Wellington and she and
her husband were going to come to the hotel on the evening of our return from
the North end of the island to compare our notes on our Family Tree. It was a lovely visit and we each found
things to add to our respective family trees. It was exciting to finally meet the family I had found
through research in New Zealand.
I had
no idea when I started researching the
Stead family that some of them had emigrated to New Zealand as well as
Australia. I had been in touch with the
ones in Australia for some years as one of the relatives had made a trip to
Canada sometime in 1950. I only met him
once for a few minutes and did not remember him. One of my mother’s brothers emigrated to
Australia and the rest of the family
came to Canada.
I enjoyed New Zealand the
only thing that I didn’t enjoy was the rain, it rained 10 out of the 21 days we
spent there. If you are going on a tour
by yourself you can ask to be teamed up with another person who is alone and hope you get a
partner who is compatible. This time I
was not very lucky as she was discontented and surly. This lady had only booked
for two weeks instead of three so I had a week by myself. I was glad because we did not get along. It was the only time I had a problem with
partners on my trips. It could have
spoilt [sic] the last two weeks as she did not speak to me unless she had to.
After we saw all the sights
on the north island we boarded the boat for the south island which was
completely different to the north even
the climate was different. It was colder
and there were mountains which we did not see in the other part. We went right
down to the end and the mountains were quite high there. There was snow on the top of them and the
last night there was quite cold. I
really did not expect it to be so cold.
I was sick and had to call the leader about 10:00 at night and get a
doctor to come out and see me. This was
the only time in all my travels that this happened. I ended up with a throat infection and had to
keep by myself as much as possible. No
one else got sick thank goodness and in a day or two I was fine.
We went back up to
Wellington and took the flight to Sydney to finish this tour. By the time we
got to Sydney I was fine. We had a tour
of Sydneys water front, saw the new opera house and other things of interest there. .
My cousin met me there and took me home with him. I added some more time to my trip and changed
my flight to come back home as I wanted to ride the train across country to Perth
on the Pacific Ocean.
I booked the train ride and
Frank, my cousin, drove me to Sydney when the time came to leave for the West
Coast. He got on
and was very impressed by the accommodation.
I had a room by myself with a bed and a cabinet holding a toilet and
wash basin so that I could get a wash in the morning if I did not want to go
out to the shower room in the morning.
There was also a little seat so I did not have to go out of my room
unless I wanted to.
I was sitting on the stool
the first morning and a lady came walking along and asked if I was alone. I said I was and she came in and sat down and
we introduced ourselves and decided to go to breakfast together. She was wonderful company and we spent the
rest of the journey together.. We had a
wonderful trip and we still correspond.
We got to a little place
called Kilgori just on the edge of the last state which to find that the
railway employees were on strike and we could go no further until it was
settled. We had two days in this little backwater of a town before we
could go on. People who booked trips on
the west coast were put on buses and rode all
night to catch their tours and the rest of us stayed on the train until
the strike was over. We had a great time
on the train waiting to go on. We really
got to know each other and the train personnel very well.
....to be continued
1 comment:
Wonderful! Your mother was an amazing, independent woman, a great example to all the women in your family.
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