Arriving on board at Southampton.
A photo of me with some other bewildered kids struggling with the lady's Italian accent.
I'm the one second on the left of the lady reading.
I remember that not long out of Southampton we experienced a severe storm in the Bay of Biscay. our cabin was located on deck C, forrad and to port, the small porthole spent most of the time underwater. We were seasick along with most of the passengers and crew. The best thing to for seasickness is to be on deck, so we did, I remember being in a saloon at night watching the storm.
My Mum and Dad sitting closest on the right. there was two sittings, one separate for the children
A lapel badge
Our voyage took us though the Suez Canal, the Ship stopping at Port Said, Aden, Fremantle, Melbourne, finally arriving in Sydney. We disembarked at Station Pier in Melbourne and traveled the last leg to Launceston, Tasmania, by plane, an Ansett ANA Fokker Friendship
The Castel Felice has quite a history. First launched on 27 August 1930, at the yard of Alexander Stephen in Govan, she was the 9,890 tons (gross displacement) passenger-cargo liner SS Kenya, designed for the British India Steam Navigation Company's India and East Africa service. She then became HMS Hydra, a troop carrier for Royal Navy in World War II, then converted to an armed infantry landing ship, HMS Keren, she saw service in various roles, including the invasion of Sicily and Italy. In 1949, Kenya underwent a complete conversion for the liner services and entered Sitmar service as the Castel Felice in 1952.
POSTCARD : S / S CASTEL FELICE, SITMAR LINE GENOA
At 12,400 tons she carried 596 cabin passengers and 944 emigrants. Castel Felice made her first voyage to Australia in 1952 but made only a few cruises from Sydney. She made a number of liner voyages from Europe to the Americas before being sold for breaking up in Taiwan in 1970.
