The Story Behind The Image - First Round The World - 1986

In March of 1986, a little over 2 years since I had started working for British Airways in New York City, I went on my first Round The World (RTW) journey. I had become an expert selling our special “RTW” fares - I was even asked to teach classes on them to other staff. And this was all because I wanted to do this myself – to travel completely around the Earth on one journey...

As an amateur astronomer, the March 1986 apparition of Comet Halley provided me with the motivation to do this. It was predicted to be at its best visibility that month, and one of the best places to see it would be in Australia’s Red Center. I therefore started to plan what would be the first of 5 different RTW journeys I would take over the next 6 years.

RTW 1 started with an inspiring pre-dawn photoshoot at Jones Beach, where I watched the sun slowly rise above the Atlantic horizon. Later that day I flew to Palm Springs, to stop in on my oldest brother and his family. We then headed to Joshua Tree National Monument to camp out for a night under the stars. As luck would have it, there was a fellow amateur astronomer right next to our site with a very large telescope. This, combined with exceptionally clear skies, resulted in some pretty decent views of the comet. 

I then continued on to Hawai’i – The Big Island, where I explored the eastern coast around Hilo, and visited Volcanoes National Park. I took in some truly amazing views of the active caldera of Kilauea Volcano from edge of the one its older caldera rims and walked the Devastation Trail. I came across some really beautiful natural spots as I checked out the area.

At my next stop in Fiji, I stayed on the Coral Coast and went diving for the very first time (after taking a brief ‘resort course’ in the hotel pool). It was a simple shore dive, but that was enough to inspire me to eventually get fully certified, and ultimately get much more into diving.

The next stop was the main destination – Australia. My other brother had preceded me there (on cheap family-of-staff standby tickets of course!) He had become friends with a Kiwi named Duncan, who in turn let me stay at his place in Sydney for a few days. Like me, Duncan was an amateur musician, and the very first night he took me out to several different places in The Rocks to see some of the local bands. At one of these venues, he introduced me to a fellow Kiwi singer.

Annie was talented, fun, attractive and best of all, she really loved the mixdown I had of my newest song – a synth-rock tune called “Who’s Your Friend?”. The next day I headed out to Alice Springs, the gateway to Australia’s Red Center, almost reluctantly now - but I knew that I would return to Sydney for a few days before catching a flight to my next destination.

Luckily, Alice Springs did not disappoint! The main goal of going there was to get to Ayers Rock, a national park (now usually referred to by its Aboriginal name, Uluru) to see the comet in clear desert skies, far from city lights. I met a British traveler about my age in the bus station, and while we were on the bus, we got to talking with another traveler, and discovered all 3 of us were guitarists. 

So once again I immediately fell in with some other musicians, but there was a difference this time – the British guy, Gary from Wolverhampton (“Gaz”), would go on to become a life-long friend. He was a naturally outgoing guy who loved a good laugh and was great at meeting new people and creating a party everywhere he went.

We ended up bunking together in a hostel at what was then known as Yulara, a dedicated tourist facility about 15 kilometers outside the park. Invited to a small party the first night by some locals, we both discovered the joys of “boxed wine” – common in Oz, but something I had not encountered before. When we finally got away to a darker spot within the park that night to view the comet, we were really in no condition to do any kind of serious observing!

I had my camera with a zoom lens on a small tripod only a few feet off the ground, and there we were sitting in the desert taking turns trying to see it, but in truth, we mostly ended up just laughing our heads off, never actually sure if we did. 

As it would turn out, the Halley apparition was exceedingly poor, with few people ever being able to see it well without a good telescope. I had actually been incredibly lucky to have access to a really big amateur scope in the dark skies of Joshua Tree! But I had also been incredibly lucky to meet people like Annie in Sydney and Gary in Alice Springs, along with several others on this trip, so it was more than worth it.

I was also fortunate enough to be able to climb Ayers Rock the next day, where we had incredible views of Oz’s unique Red Center landscape from the top. As of 2019, you can no longer do that – I understand and agree with the reasoning for this – but can’t deny how happy I am to have been able to experience it. Later that day we went out to the other main attraction of the park, a related set of ancient rocks called The Olgas (also now typically referred to by its Aboriginal name, Kata Tjuta). I had not heard of these until I booked the trip at the bus station in Alice Springs, but they turned out to provide simply great photographic opportunities. 

The featured image “The Crack In The Universe” was captured there. The awesomeness of the natural lighting, the contrasting red rock and deep blue sky (dotted with little puffy white clouds), and the overall shape and contour of this view was immediately apparent to me. I now consider that day in the park, on the top of Ayers Rock and at the foot of the Olgas, to be a significant milestone in my photography journey. Two years into traveling the world with a decent 35mm camera, I was really beginning to feel like I was starting to ‘get the hang of it’….

After one last somewhat raucous night in Alice Springs, where Gary created a spontaneous party of world-wide fellow travelers, I finally made it back to Sydney. I ended up having an amazing day with Annie, starting with a view over the city from the top of the Centrepoint Tower. This was followed by a picnic lunch with wine in front of Sydney Opera House – where we basically had the whole place to ourselves. We then took a ferry across Sydney Harbour to the beautifully set Taronga Zoo. 

We finally ended up that night at a house party with Duncan and a host of their mostly expat Kiwi friends. And as we all started to loosen up, an unexpected visitor arrived – one of Annie’s ex-boyfriends. Although they were “exes”, it was immediately clear that there was still something there – he was a nice guy, but it was obviously a rather unfortunate end for me to an otherwise great day. Annie did take me to the airport the next morning – I mean, I was about to head out anyway – what could really be expected? But we both clearly expressed how happy we were to have met each other, and then parted ways with a friendly hug and kiss. C’est la vie, as some would say….

I had 3 more brief stops left before I could complete my first circumnavigation of the planet – Singapore, Bangkok, and Amsterdam, and it was the first time I had visited any of them. In Singapore, I stayed at the original Raffles Hotel, having breakfast surrounded with songbirds in fancy cages, and drinking Singapore Slings at Raffles’ Long Bar, where the drink was created. I then got stuck at Changi Airport a whole day trying to get out on my stand-by staff ticket. 

To fill the time, I ended up buying and reading The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy trilogy of books. At that point in my life, I was beginning to feel like I could relate to all the various far-out characters travelling to exotic reaches of the galaxy and having crazy adventures. As I read them, it became obvious to me why the books were considered ‘must read’ by so many of my fellow travelers.

I did eventually get to Bangkok late that night and was amazed at the unbelievable traffic just to get into the city. The next day I did the usual temple tours, which I found fascinating in their variety and spectacular ornamentation, and took a boat ride on the Chao Phraya, which cuts right through the heart of the city. I also had dinner at Bussaracam – one of the most famous Thai restaurants in the world. 

Finally, in Amsterdam, I bought some Grolsch, some fresh-baked bread and a hunk of aged gouda and had myself a little picnic as I cruised the canals taking pictures from a tiny, rented pedal boat. In the evening I had my first experience with an Indonesian-style Rijsttafel restaurant, all before heading home to New York.

So many varied experiences resulted from this one journey. And these, of course, are only just the ones I can actually tell you about...

I arrived in Delhi thoroughly exhausted in the wee hours of the morning, after connecting over London and stops in Bahrain and Dubai. Still a travel novice and not really used to dealing with jet lag, I ended up sleeping in my hotel room for almost 24 hours. Then on my first day out exploring Delhi, I proceeded to get scammed out of about $50 from a local who offered to be my guide. It was not a particularly auspicious introduction to traveling in the developing world.

Thankfully, things started to change for the better on the second leg of the trip, when I flew up to Srinigar, in Kashmir, and proceeded to book accommodation on a beautifully appointed houseboat on Dal Lake. The price was incredibly affordable, and included all meals, excursions to the surrounding countryside, and a guide.

Things were now definitely looking up! A houseboat on a beautifully picturesque lake, surrounded by the foothills of the Himalayas. Awesome vegetarian meals cooked from scratch to order. Exploring Moghal Gardens, ancient temple ruins, local towns, and amazing Himalayan views of mountains and glaciers during the day. My only previous international travel experience had been to Jamaica, the UK and Ireland, so the ‘level of exotic’ I was now experiencing had been ratcheted up considerably...

Sadly, however, Kashmir has retained its mystique in part due to its extremely unstable political situation, which often resulted in highly restricted travel to the area. Just four years after I was there, another armed insurgency arose, with western tourists being kidnapped in 1995. Horrifically. one of them would be beheaded and found in Pahalgam, a beautiful mountain resort area that I had been to on one my my excursions. I was extraordinarily lucky to visit Kashmir during what would turn out to be a window of relative calm.

The third and last destination was Agra, in order to experience the Taj Mahal for the first time. This is where the featured image, “Reflecting Pool Devotees”, was originally captured. I was so fascinated by the different people I saw there that I spent more time photographing them than I did the Taj itself.

I would end up, however, spending several more unplanned days in India, living at the Delhi Centaur Airport Hotel, trying to get back home on my standby airline tickets. Pan Am had gone on strike, filling every spare seat out of Delhi on my own airline, British Airways, with disrupted Pan Am passengers for days on end. 

I would eventually realize that I could get the BA staff in Delhi to issue me alternative tickets to London via Paris on Air France or Frankfurt on Lufthansa, and after four days of waitlisting, standing by, and calling my office in New York to arrange coverage for my shifts, I finally got to London on Air France, and back home 5 days later.

After what seemed to be a Herculean effort to get back, I finally boarded a homeward-bound train at Jamaica Station, and proceeded to pass out from the exhaustion and relief. Then, just after the train left Greenlawn, the last stop before my own, it broke down. In a final act of determination, I ended up dragging my overpacked bags over my shoulders and walking the tracks the rest of the way to the next stop, Northport, where my car awaited. In full zombie-mode I then drove myself home and poured myself into bed, thus ending the trip as is had started - in a state of complete exhaustion.

My paternal grandmother, Mary Davey, was raised in a small hamlet in County Sligo, Ireland, which I first visited back in 1984. One night, as I was visiting with relatives still living in this remote area, my cousin Vera (who I was actually staying with nearby in a larger town), suggested that we stop by the old graveyard to see where some of my ancestors were buried. I looked over at her daughter Dolores, who had been bringing me around to meet relatives and see the sights, and saw she was also up for it, so I quickly agreed. 

After a few minutes drive, we parked and stepped out of the car into the chill of a dark October night. The wind blew steadily as we opened the creaky metal gate of the old graveyard, and entered its confines armed only with a flashlight. The paths were all overgrown and uneven, as we carefully made our way towards an old stone tomb, which Vera knew had a small opening in its wall where a person could see old skeletons on its floor. Sure enough, when we finally got there, we took turns peeking through this small hole with the flashlight, and the tomb revealed its old bones and skulls to us. 

Amazed at this incredibly unusual view, I immediately knew that I had to make my way back to the car to retrieve my camera and flash unit, this time solely by the light of a cold gibbous moon. I stumbled a few times, but eventually got back to the car, where I adjusted my flash, exposure and focus settings by the dome light, as this would not really be possible in the darkness of the cemetery. 

As I was making my way back, more carefully now as I was clutching my camera rig close to my body, I heard a small commotion somewhere ahead of me and stopped, as I could now make out my two relatives with the flashlight heading towards me. I asked if everything was OK, and Dolores said they were fine, and urged me onward to take the picture while they would head back to the car. So I continued on my way, found the tomb, and I was just able to poke the camera and flash through the small opening in the tomb wall, when I held my breath and clicked the shutter, hoping for the best. I would not be able to see the results until I returned home to the states and had the film developed, many weeks later.

At this point, the intense otherworldliness of the situation finally came to me all at once in rush, and I made my way back to the car in an almost giddy state. The mood in the car, however, was quite different, with my cousin being very quiet during the ride back to her home, and only when we got there did she start to talk. 

Vera, it seemed, had seen a small girl ‘no more than 9 or so’ back in the cemetery, and had called out to her daughter, causing the commotion I had heard. Now back at home, Dolores assured her that no young girl would be wandering around such a scary old graveyard at that time of night, and pointed out that hardly anybody even lived in the area anymore. Vera looked at us, and said something like, ‘who knows if she still lived at all?’ This got us talking about ghosts, and Vera was clear in her belief that they were real, and that she had probably just encountered one. Dolores, of a younger generation, and about my own age, surprised me by seeming to have a very open mind on the subject. I myself, was not at all sure what to think.

Twenty-two years later I revisited the old graveyard with my wife and kids on a trip to introduce them to my Irish relatives. I found very little had changed, and that the tomb with the hole in the wall was still there, bones and all. My kids were fascinated by the story of my first visit there, going on and on about it, and asking me if I thought it was really true - had we really encountered a ghost? Over the years I had begun to wonder myself, but finding everything still unchanged made me reconsider what had actually happened that cold and windy October night, when I was just 24 years old. The one thing I knew for sure, was this time I was determined to visit the place during daylight hours only. Possibly as a result of this decision, the spirit world had apparently decided to remain silent.