Cathy from ~wander.essence~ is re-inventing her travel blog(s) and encouraging us all to think about the ways, the reasons and the whys about how we travel. Her posts are certainly making me think about how I blog.
The Call to Place: “I invite you to write a 500-700 word (or less) post on your own blog about what enticed you to choose a recently visited or a future particular destination.”
There is one place that has had a very strong pull on my emotions pretty much the whole of my life. And still does.
The Land Down Under
I was ten years old when my parents told me that we were going to move to Australia. The other side of the world. I was so excited. There lived kangaroos and wallabies and parrots. The sun shone every day, everyone lived by the beach and doctors flew in planes.
It didn’t happen. At the last moment my dad backed out. He was fifty and worried that he wouldn’t find a job and with a wife and three kids to support he decided that being a £10 POM wasn’t for him. Or us.
For years I dreamed of that big island continent. I learned about Australia in my geography classes and the more I learned the more I wanted to be there. A friend in the same class as me emigrated when we were both fifteen. She was a Judith too. I was so jealous.
Several years later and I was ready. I had just finished six months working in a hotel in Norway and had saved almost every penny (or kroner) I earned to make the journey to Australia. I was going overland with a someone I’d met who was returning to South Africa. We made it to India together which was where we would split up. He to the west, me to the east.
It didn’t happen. At the last moment I chickened out. I got scared of travelling alone in India where Europeans disappeared from trains, never to be seen again. I joined him and headed west. To South Africa. I met some New Zealanders in Cape Town. They were moving to Australia and invited me to stay with them once I got there. Which meant returning to Norway for another summer season and then flying out to Sydney. I wasn’t taking any chances.
It didn’t happen. Instead I met a man and fell in love and returned to England and got married and returned to South Africa and had a baby. Australia was still in my heart, but life was too full to dwell on it for long. We discussed moving there, but it never happened.
Fast forward several years and I was living back in England with my four children. Broke. Homeless for a while. Desperate to get to Australia I made a plan. I went back to college and studied for my A levels. I applied to university and got myself an Honours degree. I worked in IT for ten years to build up sufficient points to be able to apply for a migrant’s working visa to Australia. I filled in all the forms, I got copies of all my certificates and then I sat down to complete the visa form.
And then I came to the third or fourth question on the form:
‘ I am 45 years old or younger’
Yes/No
If the answer is No do not proceed with this application.
I had turned 46 only three months before.
I was gutted. Heartbroken.
I cried.
I was numb for a long time. Over a year.
For fifteen years of my life I had only one goal in mind and now that had been taken away from me. The Aussies had changed the maximum age requirement from 49 to 46. I was too damn old. My skills were not wanted. I was not wanted.
It couldn’t happen.
There is a sort of happy ending though, I am sure you will be glad to know. My eldest son moved to Australia, married and had a daughter. I visited him for the first time when she was eight months old and got to see Sydney and we took a trip up the coast as far north as Noosa. We visited Fraser Island, the largest sand island in the world. I stood on the ‘eighty mile’ beach. Got annoyed by all the flies. Sat on the Opera House steps, walked over the Harbour bridge and took a ferry to Manly where my old Kiwi friends moved to all those years ago.
They had sent me a postcard telling me there was a spare room waiting for me.
Looking up at the building where they had lived I thought about why it hadn’t happened and how I have always felt that Australia should have been my home.
But it will never happen.
TRAVEL WORDS 
The address of this post is strong enough to tell us the story…impressive!!!
Thank you 🙂
I’m glad that finally, after all those stumbling blocks, you were able to visit the land of your dreams! Things do happen for a reason…and this gives me much hope that I can also see those places I long to see — i just have to get over the nagging fear of traveling by myself… Thanks for this post!
I was single for a long time and realised that if I didn’t make the effort to go alone I would never go anywhere. You actually meet more people as a solo traveller.
I guess you’re right. That should inspire me more to make that first solo trip..been thinking about it lately.
Go somewhere you’d feel safe in, or maybe go on a tour so you are not alone. I think once you have done it you’ll be fine.
What a ripper of a post Jude. wanderessence is inspiring us right left and centre. I’ve just spent the day bussing to Sydney, haunted by her “intentions”. I had no idea your longing to come here was so great. My heart wept with you when you discovered you were too old – at 45! Give us a break! Your photos do the country of your dreams proud. The pull of place lasted so long, and you worked so hard to make it happen. You’re sad refrain structures the piece beautifully.
Sigh… it took me a long time to get over the fact that I couldn’t emigrate. I felt I had to escape from England, but even that didn’t work out as planned. Oh well, life goes on, and indeed did. And I have had some great holidays in your country.
Oh Jude, what a sad story and how wicked of our government to say anyone over 45 is too old to be a valued contributor to Australia. At least you can visit as often as you like and there will always be a welcome at my place for you.
Oh, thank you for that Carol. I have to say I looked at several ways to enter your country, but none of them feasible. As for a retirement visa, you have to be a millionaire to get one of those! And maybe it all worked out in the end as it is possibly too hot there in the summer for me nowadays 🙂
Maybe, but we’ve found when we’ve moved interstate that we acclimatised very quickly. If you’d come at that age, you would get used to it. Lucky you can choose when you want to come and visit.
Hope to get over there this year.
A compelling personal memoir, Jude. I was lucky, as I always wanted to live in London, and did. I felt a pull to the coast later in life though, and regretted not making the move earlier, as I couldn’t afford to live where I really wanted to be.
Best wishes, Pete. x
Sadly I couldn’t make the move earlier as I needed all those years to pass through their point system. One reason why I was determined not to leave it any longer to move down to Cornwall was that I figured we would be outpriced.
I think you made a good choice with Cornwall, Jude. No poisonous spiders at least!
Best wishes, Pete. x
Haha… very true Pete! I have some ginormous ones lurking in the shed, but as far as I know they are not poisonous!!
Such a fine piece, Jude. The regrets we have! But they gives us character too, deepen the layers of experience and understanding.
I was a bit lost for a long time as I had focused on that goal for soooo long.
I can imagine – and after all that effort.
So true, Tish
Your childhood imaginings of the land down under sound not unlike how NZ was sold to me as a child when my parents decided to emigrate. I was promised endless sunshine, hot pools and Christmas on the beach; the last a blatant bribe when I apparently said “no thank you” to the offer of a new home.
It is sad that you haven’t been able to fulfil the dream of living in Australia, and I’m glad you can visit. Forty five does seem terribly young to be the cut-off age for migrants. What a wealth of experience the country is missing out on.
The cut-off point had been 49 for years, so it was a complete shock to me that it had changed. I tried for New Zealand as the cut-off point there was/is a more realistic 55, but could not reach the eligible number of points until close to that age and things had changed in my life by then. I was remarried and the OH not keen to leave England. Apparently now you need to be under 45 to apply for a skilled migrant’s visa in Oz and under 56 for NZ.
Nice to know NZ isn’t quite so ageist. But I wonder what “skills” actually import. All we hear on the news is that we need more instruction workers, fruit-pickers and farmhands.
Not sure, but I know my son (who works in corporate travel management) couldn’t get a job with Air New Zealand and he says the wages there are very low and there are very few positions so it is competitive. He has Aussie nationality now so can work in either country (lucky boy!!).
Yes; we are definitely a low-wage economy 😦
😦
Oh Jude, this piece is fabulous! I love it so much. I can just feel the yearning and the ultimate disappointment when you found you couldn’t emigrate to the land of your dreams. You worked so hard to make it happen! That age limit is really low. I’ve encountered age discrimination so much in working abroad. In Turkey, for example, the age limit to teach there is 50. I couldn’t even go back to Oman now as the age limit is 60. It’s so frustrating especially for those of us who are in good health, energetic and young at heart. How serendipitous, though, that your son moved there and lives there, so you can visit at any time. How life leads us down so many convoluted lanes! This is really great. Thanks so much for writing it and sharing. (Of course, you and I have shared this story by email before, but it’s so nice to see it here!)
Thanks Cathy. Glad you liked the piece, and thank you for your invitation that inspired me to write this. Given how long people need to work now before being eligible for a pension you would think they would raise the limit.
I’m so glad you were inspired to write this in response to the invitation, Jude. As for the age thing, it infuriates me as to how unreasonable these limits are. How frustrating it must have been for you after working so hard to realize your dream! And how serendipitous that your son ended up moving there. Your dreams must have been embedded in his genes!
Actually he disliked Australia for many years, finding it ‘sterile’ culturally. He would have move back to South Africa in a heartbeat, but no work there for a young white male. He has grown to appreciate his second adopted home now 🙂
Oh my gosh, he disliked it while you were so yearning to be there! I’m so happy he likes it better now! Isn’t it funny how things work out?
What a poignant story, Jude. Beautifully written.
Thank you Anabel.
Oh, goodness, Jude…what a heart-rending piece…..I, too had no idea that your desire to emigrate was so strong…I agree with Tish about regrets.
I had to let it go eventually Sue, but it was hard to accept that I would never move there. Still, life moves on and there are many reasons that makes England a good place for me.
I am very sure it was extremely painful, Jude