I raced cars in South Africa until I lost my sight in 2018. At Kartmania in Adelaide I had a plan to drive again: one slow lap behind two friends, then on my own. Then two large parties arrived, our session grew to thirteen karts, and I made the call to watch from the sidelines instead. My friend won his birthday race.
A brew tour at Coopers Brewery in Adelaide, five small glasses at the tasting table, and a smell I had met an hour earlier in a jar of malt. Headphones carried the guide through the loudest parts of the plant, the fish and chips were world class, and I came home drinking beer differently.
Real things in plain cases, close enough to see. A family day at the free South Australian Museum in Adelaide: a first mummy for the girls, animals displayed without fuss, and a wall of Antarctic-cold ice you can put your hand on.
A black butterfly on his arm, a dingo spotted before anyone else, and a dark wombat cave crossed by following a friend’s voice. Alan Groom, who has sight loss, spends a school holiday day at Melbourne Zoo with two young girls and finds a zoo that puts its animals first, and a reminder of why that matters.
Five hours at Melbourne Museum with two young girls, a hunting T. rex and a room of quarantined spiders. Alan Groom, who has sight loss, finds a museum that speaks in light, scale and touch, and learns what helps when the labels are out of reach.
The six-year-old found the touch pool before I did. A day at SEA LIFE Melbourne Aquarium with dear friends and their two daughters, in galleries built for the dark, with a reef shark circling overhead and a glass floor above a saltwater crocodile. A city aquarium that is compact, colourful and well worth the visit.
A small country fair on a working Dumfriesshire estate, mud and rain included. Why my cane stayed in my bag for the day, how a phone camera became my only way of watching the main ring, the ownership story tucked beside a 1967 tractor, and the Highland cow that made the whole soggy afternoon worth it.
Read time: roughly 7 minutes.
A two night city break in Prague, a fairytale city built on cobbles. How I learned the route before I left home, why the trams deserve more respect than the cars, what happened when nobody recognised my white cane, and the trick that gave me Charles Bridge and Prague Castle entirely to myself. Read Time – 12 Minutes
Before I lost my sight, I drove, and I loved it. This week the RNIB invited me to climb inside one of the Waymo test cars now learning the streets of London, and to hear what a room of thirty visually impaired people really thinks about handing the wheel to a machine. This one is different: a special report from an afternoon where hope and hard questions sat side by side.
Read time: 11 minutes.
The ship is the easy part. The real challenge starts the moment I step off it, into an unfamiliar city every morning with a white cane and only a rough sense of which way the sea is. Lost in Barcelona, rescued by a stranger at a Bruges ticket machine, and nineteen storeys up a ropes course because curiosity won.
8 min read · Accessibility checklist included