A seductive siren, San Sebastian sings to me. Headphones in and jammies on, I tell her to shush.
Outside is the reason I am here in Spain for a month-long travel writing course. Outside is the reason I am the furthest physical point away from home in Australia I could be.
I’m in my hostel…
I’m a romantic -- always have been; always will be. I love the idea of knowing what the stars have to say, and am also one of those debatably crazy chicks who has memorised every characteristic of every zodiac sign. When meeting someone for the first time, there’s every chance I’ll be spending a significant…
In January, in Paris, I got a pair of black leather lace-up shoes from a second-hand store that weighs your choices and charges by the kilo. The left shoe was sprinkled lightly with mould and the right’s sole was peeling slightly away, but in the shop mirror they looked sleek and well-sculpted, and outside, on…
In 1994 in Melbourne, Australia, my dad sat in peace. He had marched and fought, and now could return to the country he’d left, with pride and without fear. 13 years later, we were packed up and heading across the world from our life in Australia to post-Apartheid South Africa. *
April 2007 The anticipation…
It’s 2am in Paris. We haven’t slept or eaten properly in over 30 hours and the De Bercy bus station greets us with the scent of dank mould and urine. An attempt at using the toilet reveals a homeless man passed out on the cold floor and the end of the bus ride from London…
The flight from Darwin to Dili takes barely an hour and a half. Cabin service starts before the seatbelt light’s switched off and descent is announced as I'm extracting the last flakes of a margarine-greasy apple turnover from its in-flight plastic wrapper. A bump-bump landing and we're the only plane on the runway for the…
Screaming, crying, cursing, and shouting. Dried up shit in the toilet, on the loo roll, and on the walls. Toys everywhere. This was my life now. This beautiful Bondi beach house had become my own personal punishment, a jail cell, complete with four kids under the age of 10 who, quite simply, hated me.
I…
“Another trip, then?”
“Yep.”
“How long’s this one?”
“Not sure yet—three months, maybe.”
“I can’t get you scripts that’ll cover you for more than two; you’re also going to need another suitcase just for medical.”
“I know.”
“It’ll be uncomfortable—there’ll likely be fatigue, headaches and joint inflammation in those last weeks. And that’s a best…
The taxi comes to a halt outside Gimme Shelter, an underground rock’n’roll bar in Canggu, Bali. The booze I consumed pulses through my bloodstream and my fried eyes sting and grow heavy with cheap mascara. My lashes crash, reopen, crash. Unsteady and unsure, my frantic fingers get lost inside my wallet and tangle around my…
The Sumida river flows through Tokyo the way the memory of Fisherman Yoru (night in Japanese) will course through my head, reminding me about the joys of being alive.
Months ago, back in Singapore, I met someone who introduced me to a world of illegal fishing. Something about rivers in the dead of the night…
Like many young women who’ve watched the Abba-inspired Mamma Mia! films, I was recently struck by the urge to relocate to Europe and have unprotected sex with three strapping lads before settling down on a Grecian island to raise a daughter with questionable patrilineage.
As I mark two notches in my Spanish belt, the correlations between…
There is nothing noble, nor brave, about running with the bulls. Nothing of the sour smell of drunkenness and strewn-out drunkards in the early Pamplonan morning, the stench of rotten food in the street and the smell of shit —nor the bloodshed of bulls— is worthy of anecdote.
But I knew that. I did…