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Penzance, United Kingdom

Climbed up Trencrom Hill. St Michael’s Way courses the base of this hill. Bloody windy up top. A great view across to St Ives on the north coast. Lost my lens cap coming down. Returned at speed up the hill while Dad waited in the hire car. To my glee I found it on the way down again. Made a bee line later in Penzance for a lens cap strap. Visited some standing stones on the road between Penzance and Land’s End. Later that evening I ducked down to Marazion to see Howard and the Wesley Chapel Choir

Penzance, United Kingdom

Awoke at cousin Howard’s farm house An Gernwyk (the corner). Walked the fields, hedge rows and darkened forests. Saw a pheasant. And the ubiquitous slugs made mournful merriment in these verdant fields. The North Atlantic air wafted in from the bay of pirates just over hill and dale to the south. Visited the town and burial sites of my great great grandparents (Towednack Church Parish cemetery) and the birthplace of my great grandfather who immigrated to Australia in Nancledra. Had lunch just outside of Nancledra at the Engine Inn, Cripple’s Ease – once owned by my my great-grandfather Stephen Curnow in the mid-1800s. So many stories and yet a tiny sliver of land this Cornwall. Shopped at Morrison’s on the way home and cooked salmon for dinner with Howard and Dad.

London, United Kingdom

Breakfast with Dad and Mum at the London home of my old Guyana friends Macarena and Michael from Guyana days. Met their 18 month old son Marco. From there to Paddington station. Dad and I bid farewell to Mum. She looked at us as if to say ‘What will become of you two odd fellows?” I watched as Mum’s bobbing ‘rinsed’ hair disappeared into the crowd. I turned to Dad. Our sojourn to Kernow (Cornwall) commences.

Perth, Australia

It begins with a dream. And so it did. Reading Robert Bly’s “Iron John” I decided that a trip with just Dad was overdue. And once we’d decided upon Cornwall – back to the old country – it was only a moment before I began plotting my onward adventure. Russia had long been in my little black book. Early high school geography days gave me a fix on Lake Baikal, the biggest and deepest freshwater lake on the planet. And a romanticism lingered in me for long cross-continental rail journeys. And ’twas only another moment before I realised that Russian lessons would need to happen fast. This was happening all awhile I was searching for a house to buy. And buy I did. And fly I did just 6 weeks later.

[Early morning on the day of departure]
Just one hour’s sleep before taxi ride to Perth International. Since 1830 hours the previous day, a sequence of chaotic multi-tasking madness. All inevitably rushing to a desired singularity: two backpacks, one naked body in boots on a set of scales. Yes! I’m under the limit.

Perth, Australia

Been working flat out in readiness for these two months on ‘adventure road’ (attributed to my Greenland friend Eva’s coined phrase, September 2010). Russian tuition has been great (alot of fun really) but I never studied enough much to the chagrin of Anna my teacher. I haven’t studied the Cornish map at all either. I expect Dad and I will work that out once we’re there.

Perth, Australia

Bags
are nearly packed and I look forward to Cornwall (a journey with Dad),
Denmark (a reunion with Mum and her family) and then Russia!..via
Finland. All the way to Vladivostok and maybe to Kamchatka? I’ll be due
back in Perth 22 July 2012. Stay tuned.

Perth, Australia

Two more sleeps and packing still awaits. Still tweaking packing list and notes for Kath. And deciding if I should polish my Rossi’s. Oh dear. But I will depart. That I am sure of.