A journey home!

On this trip to England we realised that Hereford was not very far from the Isle of Wight, where my father lived when he was younger. To kill two birds with one stone we decided to go there to visit after Hereford and to see my oldest sister Leo and her husband Neil. We left Hereford and drove south to Lymington where we could catch the ferry to the Isle of Wight(IOW) which is an island on the South coast of England not far from the mainland. All our lives(siblings and I) when people enquired about our father's origins we always said the IOW and none of us(Mom's children) had ever been there before. So I was the first Samoan Jackson to make the journey to my father's almost homeland. My father passed away when I was 5 so I have a few memories of him and most of the things I know were of what Mom and other people told me. For me it was enlightening to see my sister and hear all her stories of our father as she grew up with him for most of her childhood years. My sister took me to my father's old work place which is now a home but the people there were friendly and took us all over the house. It was amazing to be retracing my father's footsteps. We also went to see the apartment and the house in which Leo and Dad lived in before he left for the Pacific. It was quite amazing because I heard the stories through Mom of those times. The IOW is beautiful and we walked through some old churches and graveyards which were ideal settings for those Sherlock Holmes mysteries. We walked along the water's edge and I just marvelled at how much it reminded me of Savaii. I could see why Dad really liked Savaii plus the warm weather. The next day we trekked through Bonchurch village and through the woods to see the land slip due to erosion and ended up at Shanklin beach and village. We had a wonderful time with Leo and her lovely husband and definitely will go back for a visit.
The ferry to the Isle of Wight.
The south coast of the island also a land slip.