Journeys of life- part the second

In 1967 we set sail for Australia. I was 14. I think none of us, parents included, had any idea of what was really ahead of us.
Nevertheless we had an exotic trip aboard the SS Orsova of the P&O line. Visiting Gibraltar, then Port Said......just before the Suez Canal was closed we passed through, , bypassing Aden (where an 'incident' had occurred...a soldier I think having been shot.... ) we went to Djibouti on the horn of Africa.  I remember being quite frightened as night fell and we were far away, and quite aware, for the first time ever, that we were white people on a black continent.
We went on to the exciting city of Bombay/Mumbai....we had never seen anything like it. Encapsulating as it does both the tensions of India and the still present tensions of the Raj with its great gateway to India.
The tension that India is both British and Indian.
In the midst of all this is poverty and porn....women in cages.....I had no conception of what this meant.
From there to Penang and the Temple of a thousand Buddhas   and the Snake Temple (here). The stupid taxi driver gave my brother R a baby snake. At least we had the sense to realise that there was no way we would be bringing live reptiles into Australia.
A couple of day later we sailed into the more benign Singapore. A pleasant drive around and my father had clever photos taken of my mother sitting in his hand....I will try to find these and post them later.
Then we landed in Fremantle, sailed on to Adelaide (the Bight was rough!) and then we drove to Whyalla ......what a shock!

Many years ago

I have blogged before about the journey our family made in 1967 from up there to down here.
Today is the anniversary of our arriving in Australia. I was 14 and couldn't even imagine being 42, let alone 42 years passing since our arrival.
Life goes on, much has changed. There are of course many cliches that could be hurled around.
My previous blog asserts how profoundly Australian I feel, and how I can see myself living nowhere else. I don't even want to emigrate to Melbourne!
But, lest we forget, emigration is not without significant cost. The loss of a large extended family nearby (hundreds of them within 30 kms) I didn't realise until years later how much a loss this was.
My sister L has moved from the swamp (way on the northern side) to Goodwood (about 10mins away...on a good day) and I have seen her more in the last week than I have in the last three months, and it's nice. Our family here is not quite as large as it was in England, but it has now got very big too. As we get older we realise that this is all a bit more precious than we might have realised.
Incidentally eldest child is in the process of getting a British passport, and will be making the journey the other way in a few months. She will return, we hope. But many don't.