Me, me, Moorea ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have a relative - a second cousin, I think (never met her!) - who is currently travelling in India and Nepal. I know this because she puts about sixty photographs a day on Instagram. (Me in a bar, me at the Taj Mahal, me in a tuk-tuk .. etc., etc., etc .. ) Now, I've no qualms with this and think it's lovely that she can relay the story of her trip to friends and family back home. It just reminds me of the time I did a round-the-world trip in 1991. Back then there were no mobile 'phones, no internet, no nothing! I shot all my photographs on Kodachrome 64 transparency film and posted the rolls home so that my Dad could forward them on for processing at Kodak's Hemel Hempstead labs. I didn't see a single one of my shots for six months. Now I know that's hardly Amundsen and the Antarctic, but it does show you how far things have come in such a short period of time, doesn't it? 

Ps: Since you ask, this is me on the island of Moorea, scene of one of my favourite films of all time. The bay on the left was deemed to be more photogenic and therefore used instead of Tahiti in The Bounty, with Anthony Hopkins. It looked so beautiful on screen that I just had to go and see it in 'real life'. I wasn't disappointed ..

A world of difference ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As a thirtieth birthday present to myself, I bought an airline ticket and took off on a six-month 'Round-the-World' back-packing trip ..

 It began on the sixth of January, 1991 ..

Exactly thirty years on and I'm living in a completely different world, one in which that dream is now an impossibility. No-one can go anywhere, anymore! The Covid pandemic's got us all in its grip, and even poor old STA travel, with whom I booked my ticket, has ceased trading because of it ..

I was going to call this blog 'The opposite of lockdown' because, flying off from Heathrow at the start of that trip, I'd never felt such freedom in my entire life. Today, people can't even step outside their front doors ..

I'm not writing about my trip to show off, I'm simply marking an amazing personal anniversary and thanking my lucky stars I was to be able to fulfill my dream. How fortunate I am to have such fabulous memories ..

Covid is never going to be a fabulous memory for today's thirty year olds. Here's hoping that their world - and ours - will open up again soon .. 

(Ps: If you're interested, this picture was taken in Moorea, the island across from Tahiti. I've always been fascinated by the 'Mutiny on the Bounty', and the inlet on my right is where they shot some of the Anthony Hopkins' film version.)