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same stars and the same night sky. Many times the thought
had brought comfort. It made me feel closer to my family even
when, eventually, my travels took me so far that the night sky
I gazed at was no longer the same as that which sparkled over
my parents. As I lay in my sleeping bag, feeling the vibrations
of my battered tent, there was no darkness at all, no moon or
stars to console me, but the sentiment remained. I knew my
family were thinking of me, that they trusted me to get myself
home safely. I've always been aware that part of the reason I
have been able to travel so far and for so long is because I've
felt the strength of that trust.
I regularly get asked about my parents, as if my desire to
explore can be explained in some way by my upbringing or that
it is perhaps due to a quirk in my DNA inherited from the genes
of adventurous ancestors. My parents were adventurous for
their time although their travels would probably be considered
rather tame by today's standards of exotic backpacking. While
I was still a baby they drove through Greece and Italy exploring
sleepy islands and discovering quiet villages. I learnt to walk in
the dust of southern Italy and first swam in the shallows of the
Greek coast. Perhaps these early adventures were responsible
for a nascent wanderlust but I don't have any memories of
my own of those days. The travels I do remember as a child
were mostly modest family holidays involving a camper van
and a soggy corner of England. Once or twice we were treated
to a package holiday in a reliably sunny part of Europe, in
resorts with synthetic blue pools and all-you-can-eat buffets as
divorced from the local culture as the fenced hotel complexes
we stayed in. And yet, our family never really seemed to fit
comfortably into this ready-made mould of organised tours
and hotel activities. I remember a delicious feeling of rebellion
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