Webb family trip to Alaska (1977)

In January 1977 our family went to Alaska to visit Dad’s relatives. We lived in Australia so this would be a big trip even by today's standards... back then it was even more of an expedition! I've pulled together a collection of old Super8 footage from that trip, mostly featuring us playing in the snow. Dad skis, we all toboggan, a car gets stuck, we watch a dog-sled race, I find an iceberg and we see lots of scenery of fir trees in the snow... As with other of the super8 films, I've added on an audio commentary from Mum. To make it easier to upload, I had to split it into two films:

Part One(sledding, scenery)



and Part Two (ski-ing, cars, dog sledding).



On the way back to Australia, we had a day's stopover in Hawaii while changing plans. This is some footage - part filmed by Mum, part from a tourist roll she bought. It's a bit of a tourist whirlwind view but interesting in a kitsch kind of way. It begins with film out the plane window as we flew over Pearl Harbour. It's also got some footage from Pearl Harbour of the actual battle which Mum filmed at the exhibit. Mostly though it's just nice scenery.

visiting Sovereign Hill (early 1980's)

Sovereign Hill is a touristy old goldmining town in Ballarat, an hour or two's drive outside Melbourne in Australia. This is some video of a visit that Mum took my little brother Pete & little sister Jen on. I'm not with them so my guess is either it was a treat for them to help make up for Mum spending so much time with me at the ice-rink, or it was while I was overseas training. I'm not sure exactly the date but it's early 1980's sometime.



I got quite nostalgic watching this, I'd forgotten how fresh-faced and sweet they both used to be. (This is before teenager-hood hit!) My favourite clip is of them winding up a heavy bucket of sand from a deep pit... Pete manages to bring it to the top, Jen is determined also to do it but she's just not quite tall enough. I also especially like the clip of them buying lemonade, they were so cute & polite!

Jenny rollerskating (early 1980's)

My little sister Jen used to roller-skate. This is a compilation of various clips of her skating... she looks very sweet! I'm not sure the exact year but my guess is it's from the early 1980's. Included are clips of her practicing at Bayswater Roller Rink (in eastern suburbs of Melbourne, Australia) and two routines where she's skating in either a competition or exhibition. There's also an exhibition routine with a bunch of other young kids skating to a Broadway number.