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Story UK
Lonely in a Sea of 8.9 Million
The groggy fog of your afternoon nap begins to dissipate. The thundery rumble of an ignored stomach calls you to action, and when the gnawing reaches fever pitch, you know it’s time to go. Of course, because you’re not a local, you don’t know where. The suggestions of a previous traveller, a close friend, ring…
March 24, 2020
Story
So, Those Bushfires
Bundarra is a tiny little village about an hour from Armidale, which is an hour and a half from Tamworth, or nearly three from Coffs Harbour. By this point if you can’t get an idea of where it is, I usually just give up. Inland New South Wales, I’ll say. Drive to the Sapphire City,…
March 19, 2020
Story
Alienation
It’s strange. You arrive to a new land, there are people to greet you. At first you don’t understand; in fact, you don’t understand for quite a while. But speaking your mother tongue never did you any good anyway. Communication was always hard for you. They say things with their hidden contexts and words you…
February 24, 2020
Story
One of the Girls
It’s quiet outside, a little too quiet. There are meant to be 17 other people here but I haven’t seen any signs of life. Tired, culture-shocked, and utterly starving, I get my first ever meal in Canggu delivered to my villa’s door: a veggie burger with chips, an order akin to that of a seven-year-old…
February 16, 2020
Story
The Pessimist in the Pool
A screech of, “GET ME IN THAT FUCKEN POOL!” rattles the oven air. Through the haze of red wine fumes baking off my body and the pain of sticky thongs rubbing on sweating, fluid-filled feet, I see the heavenly azure expanse that is the pool and quicken my hobble towards it. My friend Ebony and…
February 16, 2020
Story UK
Sushi, Sex and the Boy Who Broke My Heart
“You’d be more attractive if you smoked and were less of a feminist,” he slurs, sloppily, arm slung like a dead weight over my shoulder as I walk him home after yet another drunken escapade. These words were not those of a nemesis nay, not even an acquaintance.  No, instead these words came from someone…
February 16, 2020
Story
What It’s Like to Travel With Chronic Fatigue
“Fuck it," I said as I clicked book. The decision was final. I was going on an adventure.  When travelling, especially as a young person, there’s an unspoken expectation that you have boundless energy, so being constantly drained doesn’t fit the bill. As a 17-year-old in my final year of school, I contracted glandular fever,…
February 10, 2020
Story
Looking For Reasons Why
“So you attracted your own attacker by manifestin’ him through your nightmares…” The round, well-meaning woman sits nodding to herself comfortably in her chair. White walls enclose on me, and whilst she makes every effort to soften the room with personal photos and her Chihuahua sitting quietly at her feet, neither the carefully chosen tone…
February 6, 2020

Astray is a storytelling project centred on travel, place, culture and identity.

We’re run by a team of writers who mostly live, work and play in nipaluna / Hobart. With reverence, we acknowledge the Tasmanian Aboriginal people as the traditional and ongoing custodians of trouwunna / lutruwita / Tasmania: land that was stolen and never ceded. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging.