YouTube Video Description↓
As a young boy of just five years old my family returned to Holland in 1956 on the Sitmar Lines Fairsea to live there in Groningen again but housing was still in short supply immediately after the Second World War. Consequently my family returned to Australia in 1958 on the Dutch immigrant ship (ex Victory ship) Waterman. While I was growing up my father became an agent to help Dutch people return to Holland in my home town. He had lots of brochures of the passenger lines providing this service which helped inspire me to remember my times as a young boy on those ships. I would go to various shops and gather more brochures and cut out the pictures of the passenger liners and paste them in a scrap book. While I was a teenager I built many models of passenger ships which I still have today and I have added several more to my collection. I travelled to New Zealand where I became a Travel Agent and booked people on those ships. Hitch-hiking to Auckland in Jan 1971 I saw the SS Australis a fine looking ship. I decided to eventually go to Holland on this ship which occurred one year later in Jan 1972. I did not become a seafarer but I did go to Rotterdam where I found work for fifteen moths working on the River Rhine barges sailing up and down that river and its many tributaries and joining canals, an incredible experience for a young twenty year old starting off in Europe. Whilst living in New York City as an International Model I lived close to where the QE2 and other cruise ships came to the port. I also saw many of them in the early 1980's in Miami and Fort Lauderdale. I do regret not taking any of these cruises which I could have done at the time. But I did make up for it by having done several cruises in recent years. Many years were spent as a Ports and Shipping Photographer which gave me access to getting rides on tugboats and pilotboats etc including even going in a helicopter and landing on ships at sea in Port Hedland in Western Australia.Access to the ships was quite easy until September 11th 2001 which changed everything unfortunately. For the past several years I video the cruise ships coming into the port of Adelaide at Outer Harbor. You can see all my videos on my YouTube channel Train Lord where in addition to my interest in trains and some continued travels I have over 350 videos so far. Enjoy!!