John Warner (6)

John Warner boasts that he travelled from Johannesburg to Cape Town on the line on which the Blue Train travels. The distinction is important: for John to actually travel on the Blue Train would be outside his desired budget; but travelling on the same line gave him the same scenery and same experiences of stations that wealthy travellers enjoy on the famous Blue Train.

John Warner, a priest who has been in the Diocese of Perth on and off since the late 1980s, has written an engaging travel show more memoir for his family and friends, and has made it available for a wider audience in Poor Man Travelling. Fr Warner traces his journeys over nearly 40 years in Europe and Asia, providing insights from his perspective as a Christian and a priest.

Travelling on a budget definitely increases the likelihood of encountering the unpredictable, and John ruminates engagingly on every aspect of his travels.

John writes more about the actual experiences of travelling than about the places he visits as 'destinations'. We sweat with him as he walks the hot streets of Alexandria in Egypt, looking for a church or the re-built fabulous library (protected carefully during the recent uprising in Egypt). We spend an uncomfortable weekend with him sleeping in the lobby of a stern Moscow hotel wondering what will happen to a paper-less traveller. Security police took him to the hotel basement for questioning, and John's writing takes us into his fear, confusion, frustration and even amusement.

The memoir also recounts the sudden death of John's beloved wife Bronwen, and the move to Sweden of his daughter Sarah to be a professional musician, and the effect these family events had on his travelling.

I expected the enjoyment of this well-rounded memoir to come from my friendship with John Warner: but its appeal is much wider than that. Poor Man Travelling is about the way Australian Anglicans see the wider world. show less