From Brac I went to Makarska where my relatives had arranged for a taxi driver they knew to take me to Drašnice to see where my grandfather had lived. His house is in old Drašnice up in the foothills of the mountain. After the earthquake in 1962 everyone moved down to the water. My grandfather was long gone by then, growing grapes in Middle Swan in Perth.
It was a tiny village and my relatives lived in connected stone houses clinging on to the steep hillside. There was no tourist industry in the 1920s, it was a tough, subsistence life. Still, I can't imagine leaving such a beautiful place to sail all the way to Australia, gambling that your life will be better there.
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