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| Passport photo |
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| International Driving Permit |
Questioned by my parents, about what I was going to do with my life, I told each of them different stories just to keep them quiet.
When pressed after they were totally confused about what I would do, on the spur of the moment, I said that we were going to Europe. I discussed it later with Danielle, and we decided to go.
We both worked hard to earn enough for the flight, and a little spending money, but we basically planned a working holiday.
We thought we could get work in London, so that was the initial destination, and Danielle's sister lived in Switzerland, so there was a vague idea of catching up with her there.
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| Certificate of Vaccination |
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| International Student Card |
We arranged our passports, Australian for me and Australian and French for Danielle, with 6 month visas for Great Britain, International Driving Permit, International Student Cards and International Certificates of Vaccination.
We took a couple of aluminium-framed backpacks, an International Youth Hostel Handbook, a map of Europe and a couple of hundred dollars in Traveller’s Cheques.
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| Kodak Retinette 1A |
I also took a Kodak Retinette 1A camera in its genuine leather carrying case. The camera had manual aperture and shutter speed settings, no zoom and no light meter - you had to estimate the exposure and framing was controlled by how close or far you could get from the subject.
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Greeting card I designed and had printed
to give to people we met |
We couldn't afford colour slide film, and colour negative film was very poor quality at the time, so I took black & white film only which was processed when we returned to Australia, after the trip was over. So during the trip, there was no way of knowing if the photos would turn out or not!
We left Australia on 11th of April 1975 on Thai Airlines, with a short stopover in Bangkok airport, and arrived at Heathrow on the 12th of April.
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1975 International Youth Hostel Handbook
- indispensable if not entirely accurate. |
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| Youth Hostel Membership |
