The right decision — a trip with Dad

It was the first time my dad and I switched roles.

It was the summer of 1984, and he’d just retired. Dad was 62; I was 39.

As part of his retirement celebration, Dad and I took five weeks and traveled to Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific. It was his lifelong dream and an ambitious itinerary.

My mom is not a traveler, and Dad didn’t want to make the journey alone, so he invited me to accompany him.

I wasn’t certain I wanted to go. I was married with four children. Did I want to abandon them for five weeks? Did I want to leave my job for five weeks? The short answer was no.

I was an assistant to Orange Coast College’s president, and a new president was to be announced during my absence.

Could I afford to be away?

“You must go,” my wife implored. “You’ll never have this chance with your dad again. You’ll regret it if you don’t go.”

As usual, she was right. I went.

We left LAX on a late Thursday afternoon, crossed the International Dateline, the equator in the mid-Pacific and landed two days later — Saturday afternoon at 2 p.m. — in Brisbane, Australia.

We picked up a rental car and drove north for six hours — on the wrong side of the road.

Then we pulled into Maryborough, Queensland, at 9 p.m. As the official “adult” on the trip, I did the driving that day. Dad was there to have fun.

We checked into a motel.

“Wanna go to the pub across the street and have a beer?” Dad asked eagerly as we tossed our suitcases on the beds.

“Naw, Dad. I’m jet-lagged,” I said. “I’m going to shower and hit the sack. We’ve got a long drive tomorrow.”

Dad went to the pub, alone.

As I unpacked my bag I found a small cassette tape from my girls that had been surreptitiously tucked into a pocket. I slid it into my portable tape recorder and listened.

“Surprise! Hi, Daddy. Hope you’re having a great trip. We miss you!” it went.

I doffed my dank clothes and stepped into the shower. And cried. I’d never felt so far removed from my wife and kids — 15 hours by air and 19 time zones — in my life.

Talk about lonely.

Dad and I awoke early Sunday morning and got on the road. It was an eight-hour drive to our next stop, Mackay, on the Great Barrier Reef. We were due to take a four-day cruise, beginning that Monday morning, of the tropical Whitsunday Islands and the reef.

We stepped into a Mackay pub Sunday night for a dinner of fried eggs and ham. Eight or 10 guys my dad’s age sat around the bar loudly telling stories. They heard my dad and I talking and were drawn to our American accents.

“Are you lot from the States?” one asked.

When they discovered that Dad had been at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, we couldn’t purchase a beer the rest of the evening.

The four days of cruising were glorious. Thursday night we pulled back into Mackay and went to the pub to see our friends. They treated us like long-lost mates. We still couldn’t buy a beer.

The next day we began a 900-mile trek south to Sydney by bus. It took two days. We hadn’t planned that leg of the trip very well.

We spent several wonderful days in Sydney, exploring Sydney Harbour, the Opera House and the winter surf at Bondi Beach.

Then, a flight from Sydney to Christchurch and 10 days on New Zealand’s North and South Islands. We savored the Southern Alps, the spectacular (and empty) beaches and gracious people.

Milford Sound was rugged, windy and wonderful.

The ferry from South Island to North Island was wet and wild.

Rotorua, cultural center of the Maori people, was amazing.

The rest of the story next week.

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JIM CARNETT, who lives in Costa Mesa, worked for Orange Coast College for 37 years.