A Walk In The Woods...

It was just a normal morning when I browse my Facebook wall when a piece of memorabilia scrolls onto the screen. It was a photo taken from one of my online albums, World Backpacking 1 - on public view online. It's a small selection of film-based photos taken from the main physical album, titled, 1997 Travel Triathlon.

The album consists of four volumes covering Singapore, the Australian Pacific coast, and Southern California. Between them, there are 560 photos altogether, 140 pics in each volume. And those are the better quality pictures. There are more of them, rejects, often consisting of "sister photos" that is, two or more identical ones, out-of-focus snapshots or those of bad shading. They are all kept in safe storage elsewhere. In all, within the ten-week Round-the-World trip, I might have taken up to 600 photographs. The Facebook album has only 62 of the best pictures of the Australian coastline, including several taken underwater at the Great Barrier Reef.

At Low Isles, GBR, taken in 1997.

When the single underwater photo appeared unexpectedly on the laptop screen, my emotions rose, and I was consumed by a deep feeling of nostalgia. Linked to this feeling of nostalgia was my awareness of God's goodness in allowing me to see his creation firsthand, and furthermore, the availability of a cheap, single-use submersible camera which, back in 1997, was purchased for just AU$10 at a kiosk onboard the Cairns-Port Douglas catamaran.

At the same time, I was invited by a long-standing church friend of forty years, who is now in his seventies. He asked me if I would like to accompany him for a walk in the pine forest, just across the main road from where I live. During our walk, I would say, for the better part of an hour, our talk included our world travel tales.

He travelled further than I did, as his story included a working trip to South Africa and entry into New Zealand, the one pair of islands I couldn't reach on my 1997 RTW trip due to both insufficient funds and the shortage of time. His visit to Australia took in Perth, on the West Coast, Sydney, on the Pacific Coast, and the Great Barrier Reef of Queensland's glory. However, unlike me who travelled alone, his trip to Australia was with his wife to meet with one of his family members who, I believe, lives there permanently.

Like me, he too swam or snorkelled at the Reef, although at a different site from where I snorkelled. He wore a full wetsuit during his dive, as he admitted his awareness of the presence of "stingers." I knew that he was referring to the lethal and dreaded Box Jellyfish or Sea Wasp.

When I visited the Reef in 1997, it was in the weeks between late May and June, their "winter" - although the weather was certainly hot and dry. The Sea Wasp is, fortunately, a short-lived seasonal marine creature, spawning in November and dying around April, that is, during their summer. Therefore, unlike my friend who had to wear a full-body wetsuit, I was able to snorkel in just shorts and a shirt, the latter to lessen the chance of sunburn on my back as I checked out the corals directly beneath. The fact that I already knew of the stinger's demise was due to a study I made at a Cairns backpacker's hostel, where I was staying before moving on, before boarding the catamaran.

Although picture postcards of the Great Barrier Reef, along with books, magazines and television documentaries, always showing the submerged biosystem in bright colours and in crystal-clear waters, giving the impression of an underwater paradise. However, when I was there, the water was always slightly cloudy, hence my own photography doesn't quite match those from the pro's camera. And it was anything but an underwater paradise! At night, any coral polyps too close to their neighbour tend to fight over territory rights. Also at night, sharks can locate small fish hiding in rock crevices and pry them out. Other fish guard their territories whilst some preditors swarm the reef, looking for a meal. Other potential prey stays on constant guard or has developed incredible body defences. Meanwhile, the majority of both fertilized coral and fish eggs floating in the currents, along with their hatchlings, will eventually be eaten.

I have wondered what a coral reef might have looked like under a primaeval ocean surface before the Fall, assuming that, like all life on the planet, such a biosystem was created "with the appearance of age" - very much like Adam and Eve were, who looked to be in their mid-twenties or even in their early thirties to the observer, when in reality, they were only a few days old. Such a reef must have been a beautiful paradise, an incredible delight to the eye.

And for other natural beauty that I had seen with my own eyes, such powers of nature such as the trail winding through the rainforest - with its spectacular waterfalls- of the Blue Mountains National Park near Sydney, the sleeping crater of Mt Vesuvio, the active crater of Mt Etna, the thundering Niagara Falls, the Colorado River flowing through the majestic Grand Canyon, the Mangroves thriving in saltwater, a beautiful array of Traveller's Palms sprouting fan-like leaves, a mountain stream flowing from the Alps, the terrific display of stars with the Milky Way streaking across a clear tropical night sky...

 

Aso here in the United Kindom, I have always been enthralled at the Jurassic Coast Path, together with the mountainous landscapes of the Lake District National Park, and in Scotland, Loch Ness, and further north, the dramatic beauty of the vertical cliff walls of the narrow canyons, along with the sandstone stacks of Duncansby Head, all within easy reach of John O'Groats.

The lethal Box Jellyfish or Sea Wasp.

Indeed, it's through the mercy of God that after the Edenic Curse, God retained much of the natural beauty we see around us, allowing us to glorify our Creator and to thank Him for his goodness and mercy. Furthermore, I can't help but give thanks to my Redeemer for allowing me the pleasures of travel and the opportunities to see all these locations first-hand. Indeed, such was the privilege!

As such, that one Facebook picture opened wonderful memories.

While my friend and I carried on talking, it became apparent just where our focuses lay. He was more into political, cultural and current affairs both at home and overseas. He was also into the business world, as in his heyday, he ran two private enterprises. One was an agency to help young graduates find the right start in their professional careers. At the same time, he also opened The Good Book Shop, a retail outlet in the town centre specialising in Bibles and other Christian literature. 

By contrast, I am more into natural beauty and dynamism.

He was sharing with me his experience of life in apartheid South Africa before the days of Nelson Mandela and his ilk. The severance between white and non-white was so serious, that even the public conveniences had both exclusively white and non-white use, with separate entrances and rooms. He even described a footbridge crossing over a railway track. The bridge, so he tells me, had a dividing fence running along the middle. One lane was for the whites, the other for blacks.

 

The conversation had revealed such a beautiful world spoilt by the entry of sin, and the Curse, which not only turned vegetarians in the animal kingdom into carnivores but also brought in hate and division into human society, the division between races which not only blighted the history of the Deep South of the New World with negro slavery but also resulted in Apartheid in South Africa - a shocking spectacle which my friend saw and experienced first hand.

And the worst thing was - that both groups believed that both slavery and social segregation were ordained by God. Indeed, the atonement made by Jesus Christ on the cross was robbed of all its potential. For the Cross not only had slain the old man but had reconciled the new man to God and to each other, so Paul was able to write:

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:28.

Therefore, when my friend testified about an all-white church youth group excluding all coloured people. This came as a shocking surprise to hear about. This is what I don't understand: How could a church - any church - profess to acknowledge the truth of the Bible and yet exclude by force anyone whose skin colour isn't approved?

As I read in an article in yesterday's Daily Mail online, Janet Street-Porter writes that the joys of travel seemed to have vanished with this Covid pandemic. She believes that the old bulldog spirit had evaporated and the nation had turned cowardly, with most of us too scared to leave our homes.

No other article had received such a huge number of hostile comments in the forum beneath it!

Perhaps they were all correct in their hostility. If I had my way, I'll be heading for the airport tomorrow. But as one married to my beloved who is partially disabled and in need of a wheelchair - plus - the rules for wearing masks, the need to take a Covid test, maybe more than one test, the need to quarantine at a hotel, long, stationary queues at border control - NO THANK YOU! Yes, the joys of travel have evaporated - but this, to me, didn't start with the pandemic.

It began nearly twenty years earlier.

In 2001, actually. In this case, Tuesday, September 11th. It's better known as the 9/11 attack. I remember that day. Alex and our baby daughter were at home. I was out on my job cleaning windows. Then my attention was turned to the customer whose windows I was cleaning. I watched on the news the World Trade Center in New York City - the roof of one of its towers that I stood upon in 1978, admiring the panorama of the city with the Empire State Building at the opposite end - was going up in a black column of smoke. The tower then went down in a mountainous pile of smoke, dust and rubble. The very building I stood on almost exactly 23 years earlier! 

The 9/11 Disaster.

It's my belief that it was this which changed the joys of travel forever. For example, before 9/11, I was able to head for the airport, check-in, board the 'plane and fly across the Atlantic whenever I felt inclined, thanks to the Visa Waiver Scheme agreed by our PM Margaret Thatcher and then-President Ronald Reagan. Travelling to the States was as easy as taking a ferry to France, and I took full advantage. But now, if I want to fly to the USA, I would need to get an ESTA document (Electronic System for Travel Authorisation) something not much different from the old tourist visa of the 1970's nightmare of vigorous form-filling and bureaucracy.

Maybe, you can ask yourself: Supposing you were at the departure gate, waiting to board your flight. You look around among all the other passengers who will be on your 'plane. You then spot two Arabic-looking young men with their hoods up, whispering to each other. They too will be on your flight. How would you feel? Nothing more than a passing coincidence? Or would you feel your hair stand on end in terror? Would you stay quiet? Or would you inform the flight attendant that you don't feel at all comfortable sharing your flight with these men?

Yes, I think I know what I would do. Inform the flight assistant to have these men removed. If not, then for them to go through a thorough security check. And that includes stripping down to a thorough body search. And have their luggage in the hold checked, if not removed entirely.

Indeed, the joys of travel had changed. But not by the pandemic. 

Yet, I thank the Lord for allowing me the wonderful privilege to travel when the times were good. Now, I can sit back and enjoy virtual travel on YouTube, having experienced the reality of the real thing.