G’day! I’m Tash and yes, that is a real snake – a spur of the moment thing… I’m generally not a thrill seeker. In fact, I’m quite the opposite. I like to plan things carefully, with a lot of thought. I’m not a fan of roller coasters – but I do occasionally like a challenge! Always on the go, I get bored easily and like to explore new places, to experience different cultures and adventures.
I live in Sydney, Australia. I’m a wife, a mum to two teenage children, and I work full-time in insurance and risk management. Hence the careful planning and reluctance to take risks.
My background – where I have lived and visited
I have been travelling my whole life. I grew up in Sydney, but my dad is originally from Bournemouth, England so since I was a baby our family went to England every 2 years or so to visit dad’s family. Dad always took the opportunity to take us to see old castles and other historic sites from around the area he grew up in. I remember being driven around the Dorset countryside for plenty of pub lunches (I hated ‘ploughmans’ with a passion). I may not have appreciated those drives through the country at the time but now that I’m older I look back at this period with fond memories. We also went across to France once or twice to experience the french culture and cuisine. On one trip, I unsuccessfully tried to bring some Camembert cheese back to Australia – stinking out the suitcase in the process!
When I was 8 years old, dad accepted a temporary job transfer to Connecticut, USA. Our family moved to Simsbury, Connecticut for a year and had the opportunity during this time to see some of the United States – mainly the east coast. I have memories of eating fish & chips in Maine, driving through autumn coloured trees in Vermont and walking on a tar-stained beach in Miami. This was an amazing experience for my sister and I – a couple of little Aussie girls moving to another country in 1979 at a time when the world wasn’t so ‘close’. I lived and breathed the American culture – going to an American school not having to wear a uniform, riding a yellow school bus, learning how to pledge allegiance to the flag of the USA every morning… We made friends with the local kids, riding our bikes around the streets and nearby woodlands during the warmer seasons and in the winter we ice-skated on frozen lakes and sledged down nearby hills in the snow.
By age 14, my mum and dad had divorced and when dad arranged a holiday to Club Med Malaysia, mum reluctantly agreed to allow my younger sister and I to travel on a plane from Sydney as unaccompanied minors. Destined for Kuala Lumpur, dad was supposed to meet us at the airport, coming off a business trip in Europe. Unfortunately he was delayed, missed a connecting flight and failed to meet us. So I found myself taking charge in a foreign speaking country. I somehow managed to get my sister and I through customs and immigration, onto another flight to Kuantan, then a small bus through the jungle where we eventually found our way to our room in Club Med. I was very brave! Surprisingly there was little help from anyone. My prior travel experience was what got us through the nightmare. Mum was furious when she found out later. She also wasn’t impressed I got dysentery and came back thin as a rake!
At age 17, mum rewarded me for some good school grades by taking me to Hong Kong, where we went shopping and experienced the local culture. Coming in to land in HK was one of the scariest experiences of my life. I was sure our plane was going to hit the nearby skyrise buildings. I haven’t been back since but heard they moved the airport to a safer location.
After finishing school at 18, I continued to travel whenever I could, occasionally with friends or my boyfriend during University breaks. Memorable holidays include a trip with my school friends to the Gold Coast, a road trip with friends to the Whitsunday Islands and a holiday in Bali.
At 21 years old after graduating from University, I did the traditional Aussie backpacking trip around Europe. For 3 weeks during winter of Jan 1992, I travelled with a friend and my sister on EuroRail passes, experiencing the cities of Paris, Amsterdam, Nice, Monte Carlo, Rome, Florence, Venice, Salzburg and Vienna. We stayed in youth hostels and ate as cheaply as we could. I kept a travel diary for this trip and have these memories for a lifetime.
I ended up moving to the UK and working in Bournemouth for the next 4 years (thanks to dad for the dual citizenship allowing me to reside and work there). There I met my now husband, Steve, and this is how I have come to call England my second home. During this time I visited many places around England, ventured to Dublin in Ireland and also to Edinburgh and Glasgow in Scotland.
We hopped across the English channel to Europe on a few occasions too, visiting France, Belgium, Switzerland, Holland, Bavaria and Prague. Some of these trips were on two wheels, on Steve’s Lambretta or Vespa, ‘two-up’ with luggage. The Vespa broke down in Boulogne-sur-Mer on one trip and we had to push it onto the ferry back to England and rent a car, throwing it the back to get it back home. Fortunately the Lambretta fared much better and carried us both to Switzerland on a 2 week trip for the 1994 Lambretta Euro Rally.
Both Steve and myself have also been competitive athletes, so this enabled us to travel to some destinations for Powerlifting championships we may not have otherwise visited: Graz, Austria (1994), Columbus, Ohio, USA (1995) and Durban, South Africa (1996).
In 1997 I took up Olympic Weightlifting, going on to represent Australia at the 2000 Olympics and two Commonwealth Games.
During the period 1998-2006, I travelled to New Zealand and several Pacific islands (Nauru, Tonga, Fiji) for Oceania and Commonwealth championships; to Manchester in England for 2002 Commonwealth Games; and to Athens, Greece in 1999 and Warsaw, Poland in 2002 for World Weightlifting Championships.
You can read all about my Olympic Journey here.
Where I am in life now
As a retired athlete, having hit “middle-age”, I have my own family and work full-time. We arrange a trip or two each year, whether it be a weekend somewhere not far from Sydney, such as the Blue Mountains or one of our nearby vineyard regions; or further overseas, like the USA. We also like to go back to England every 2 or so years to visit our extended family. On some of these long haul trips I have organised a stop over in Asia or side trip with Steve, somewhere in Europe. Fortunately my work involves some occasional travel, usually interstate day trips, so I try to squeeze in some time to see something while I am visiting other cities, at worst from a cab or during a client lunch.
So, it seems travelling has been in my blood since I was a baby … and whilst I love my home town of Sydney, I can’t wait for the next trip and opportunity to explore somewhere new.
