Every ten days I have been sending PDF files of new chapters to friends and relatives, and as the project is coming to a conclusion, many readers have suggested starting a blog and posting the chapters for others to read.
I was planning to provide a link to the PDF file but have not yet discovered the secret to that process, so instead below is the complete first chapter added here with tried and true 'cut and paste' strategy......
Chapter 1 - 1966 Travel deities and our first Plan B
Many civilizations and nations have, or had centuries ago, a god or goddess of travel. Even today, some travelers carry tributes to their travel god or goddess to ensure safe and happy journeys.
Though we have not carried a medal to keep St. Christopher content, an oak leaf to honour the Roman goddess Fortuna Redux, travelled with acorns to invoke the Greek’s Artemis, or pacified the Polynesian goddess Hina with a two sided object, we look back on more than forty years of travel together to find that the gods and goddesses have smiled on almost all of our journeys.
But, our first major itinerary together was definitely not smiled upon by any of the deities. In 1966, a year after our wedding, we planned to cross the Pacific from Melbourne to Vancouver to find jobs as Landed Immigrants in Canada, and thereby earn money so that we could travel further and continue around the world. Using a travel agent, we booked our passage to ‘cruise’ on P&O’s SS Canberra, and as 1966 began, our planning intensified and we started counting the weeks before we would board and sail.
In May, we were notified that there was a British Seaman’s strike, that the Canberra was tied up in Southampton, and that her movements were uncertain. If the strike were to be short, our plans would be delayed; if the strike dragged on past a week or so, our plan to sail to Canada could not be salvaged. The strike lasted six weeks....
Arcadia and Canberra tied up in Southampton: June 1966.
So our first long trip together involved a switch to a Plan B - though the very same SS Canberra would feature later in our travels.
Flights to Vancouver were booked instead. In 1966 not all airlines used jet engine propulsion for their routes so consequently, my maiden flight [Pat had flown previously] was from Melbourne to Sydney on a very noisy and rattly propellor-driven aircraft - it may have been a Convair. The cross-Pacific flights were on jet aircraft, but before we landed in Vancouver we had to endure several lengthy stop-overs en route. Upon arrival, very tired, we discovered that only two of our three suitcases had reached the Vancouver airport at the same time we did. Maybe we should have been carrying an oak leaf?
After that rocky beginning, as following pages will demonstrate, our travel tales are much more positive and rewarding. The gods and goddesses of travel smiled often after July 1966.
We left our hearts in San Francisco - and Napa Valley
Once we had established ourselves in Nanaimo on Vancouver Island in British Columbia in August 1966, our first significant journey was a driving trip to San Francisco and back on our Christmas break that year. Several incidents and experiences on that trip amply demonstrated that the travel gods were smiling on us again.
In August, we had used a large percentage of the bank balance forwarded from Australia to buy a black, 1959 VW Beetle, and in December we were armed with AAA maps, guidebooks, and some reservations for accommodation en route. Within an hour of the end of the school day at the start of the holiday, we set off to spend the night in Victoria, just two hours distant.
After crossing the Strait of Juan de Fuca to Port Angeles on the MV Coho the next morning, we drove around the scenic Olympic Peninsula in the pelting rain, before spending a night in Astoria, Oregon. We continued the next day down Highway 1 on the magnificent Oregon coast and drove across the famous Golden Gate bridge into San Francisco in the sunshine, late in the afternoon two days later.
Being total novices at finding the right places to go in large US cities, we consulted the helpful man at the desk of our motel - his recommendation was the Gray Line nightclub tour. This promised a pick-up at our motel, visits for a performance at three establishments, a drink at each, and delivery back to our motel. All this was for a set price with no guarantees as to which nightclubs would be included on any particular night, but we gambled and booked the tour for our second night in San Francisco. A hectic day of sightseeing in wonderful San Francisco
occupied the following day. As first-timers to this city we drove down Lombardy Street, climbed the Coit Tower, strolled on the tall ships moored at Fisherman’s Wharf, visited Chinatown and rode the famous cable car.
This made a nap necessary before the appointed hour for the nightclub tour. To our delight and surprise, there were only six people on this tour in a small, comfortable van. Our driver informed us that we were very lucky because we were going to visit three of his favourite places. The first stop was The Purple Onion and though some local and US national references went right over our Australian/Canadian heads, the stand-up comedians at this famous club were most entertaining and engaged the audience from the start.
Coit Tower seen from Fisherman’s Wharf
From there it was a short trip to Finochio’s, which was celebrating 30 years in operation. We had no prior knowledge of this, but it proved to be a nightclub with all of the glitter and sophistication of the musical numbers provided by men - dressed as women. Our naive jaws dropped as we watched talented singers and dancers in phenomenal costumes; the appearance, movements, voices of the performers all totally convincing. The headliner was the famous “Male Sophie Tucker” who appeared at the club as the star of the show for almost 30 years.
As our driver steered us to the third nightclub, we did not believe anything could top what we had already experienced. How wrong could we be? At the Fairmont Hotel we were escorted to a table in the rear of a large ballroom - the Venetian Room - and presented with our drinks just as the lights dimmed and the orchestra on the stage played an introduction ---- for Tony Bennett! His set was almost an hour long. He very generously sang a wide ranging repertoire and as an encore, “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” which we learned later he had sung for the first time in that very room in 1962.
We were still smiling when we left San Francisco the next morning on the short drive to the Napa Valley. Raised in Australia, and with Pat’s father being a very active member of the Bendigo Wine and Food Society, we young tourists had some background on vineyards, grape varieties and wine-making. We soon discovered that this knowledge was not very common amongst other tourists and when tours were offered, the guides began with very basic information. At our first choice for a visit, the very recently-opened Mondavi Brothers winery in its striking, white building, our guide was very excited to find we actually knew how wine was made, and suggested we do a very short version of the standard tour and proceed to the tasting room faster than was usual. After a special tasting of their newly-named Fume Blanc - Mondavi’s attempt to move away from the typically semi-sweet Sauvignon Blanc made at that time in the US - and some reds as well, we needed a nap in our little Beetle before continuing to our second stop for the day.
Wine lovers might be amused to read that our other two choices for winery visits were Christian Brothers and Heitz Cellars.
At the former, the long history of the very forward-looking Brother Timothy, his work at the heritage building, and the tasting of the wines and brandy were most enlightening. Joe, at Heitz Cellars, met us in what was almost a tin shed, and when he discovered we ‘knew something about wine’ he told us of the Martha’s Vineyard Cabernet which was maturing in barrels for the first vintage, and conducted a special tasting for us of his favourite wines. Those Martha’s Vineyard designated wines later became the first to break various barriers in terms of high prices for wine from California. A bottle we bought at the end of our visit was served masked to a wine connoisseur visiting us eight years later - he guessed it to be a top quality Australian red wine, rated it very highly and was totally surprised when told it was from California.
The trip back to Canada on Interstate 5 through inland California, Oregon and Washington was uneventful other than our driving up the road at Mount Shasta until we were at a higher altitude than anywhere in Australia.
About five minutes after crossing the border into British Columbia two days later, the clutch on the standard stick-shift Beetle decided it was tired. We limped to the ferry terminal at slow speeds accompanied by much crashing of gears - and after some temporary repairs in January we began the process of replacing that VW with another one. We subsequently bought a new, blue VW station wagon which would serve as our bed, tent and transportation on a memorable cross-Canada/US journey in just six month’s time.
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