Travel
“Travel” Just the word itself makes me smile and I have been lucky enough, and determined enough, to visit many countries. I love departures … but I also love to return home. With sight loss, travelling needs a little more pre-planning but what I say is, ‘Go for it!’
Home Page Overseas Travel 5W – Women Welcome Women World Wide		At last, I have decided how to begin this page! The picture below is of an article which appeared in the Southampton Echo in April, 1937. The text is as follows:
			Baby Fliers Who is Britain’s most air-minded baby? Fourteen months old Susan, daughter of Mr and Mrs Endacott, of Jersey might claim the title. Seven times she has crossed from her home in Jersey to Southampton Air Port and back in Jersey Airways machines. Her first trip was when she was 21 days old.
		When she left the airport at Jersey this week with her parents, she was accompanied by her 3.1/2 years old sister, Barbara, who is now a veteran air traveller. Barbara has completed her nineteenth crossing to Jersey by air.
		Mr Endacott is a Manager for the Anglo-American Oil Company for Jersey and Mrs Endacott is a daughter of Mr and Mrs Downey of Winn_road, Southampton. (Of course, in those days, the planes used to land on the sands at low tide in St Helier Bay!)
		Past Travels When I was small, we lived by the sea; so from an early age I have been accustomed to seeing distant horizons. A few years later, we moved to Wembley Park, but we all felt the call of the sea so our annual holidays were two weeks at the seaside. Dad packed our clothes in the big trunk which was attached to the luggage rack on the back of the Austin 7 Ruby and we all squeezed in for the annual two-week holiday by the sea. The ‘travel bug’ has been with me ever since, so I welcomed the chance to live abroad in the 1960s in Little Aden and 1986 in Australia. Recent Travels With the much improved political situation in Northern Ireland, the tourists are returning and a friend and I decided to go there in July this year. We flew from Southampton Airport to Belfast and enjoyed a few days walking in Belfast and visiting the north coast, including the Giant’s Causeway. Lough Neagh and the southern part of NI will be the subject of another visit. Future Travels Next year I hope to visit Australia again – this will be my fourth visit since spending 1986 there on Exchange Teaching, in a small town in south Australia called Port Lincoln. This will be for visiting friends – Marion in Brisbane, Marg and Allan in Adelaide and Helen in Port Lincoln. Helen lived two doors away from the house I had exchanged in 1986 and we became very good friends. Assisted Travel For people like myself who are blind or partially-sighted, Assisted Travel is available and makes journeys easy and enjoyable. This is available whether travelling by rail or air travel. It is free and during the past ten years I have found it most useful, particularly for unfamiliar journeys. 5W – Women Welcome Women World Wide This organisation is for women who would like to travel alone and make contact with similarly-minded women in other countries. For further information, I do recommend that you go to one of their web sites. The link on the left will take you to Marion Jones’s page, the Regional Organiser for Brisbane. 5W’s main web site is http://www.womenwelcomewomen.org.uk