A $25 Boat Ticket To Australia Got Me Hooked On Sea Travel
Why it’s always better to arrive by water
My love of travelling by sea began early. At the age of 1, my parents uprooted me from Scotland, the country of my birth, and took me for an adventure on the high seas. It was the early 1970s and we were ten pound Poms.
“What the heck’s a ten pound Pom?” I hear you ask…
After the Second World War, Australia was on a quest to grow its population so the government offered assisted passage for those interested in immigrating there. The cost of the sea passage was ten British pounds (about equal to $25 US in 1971). British people were nicknamed Poms by the Aussies – no one can agree exactly why that is!
I spent six weeks toddling around the decks and ballrooms of the good ship Fairsky as it sailed from Southampton, England to Freemantle, Australia. We stopped at Lisbon, the Canary Islands and Cape Town on our way to our new home, picking up souvenirs that forever graced my parent's home, and my mum and dad participated in the infamous “Crossing the Equator” ceremony complete with Neptune with his robes and trident. So I got my sea legs early!
Sadly our new life in Australia didn’t work out and after a few years we were back in rainy old Scotland.
