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Checkpoint 300: The World’s Worst Commute
“Qahua, qahua, qahua!” shouts Amin Jebreen, whose coffee cart, bellowing steam in the frigid morning air, is doing a roaring trade despite the fact that it’s 2:30am. Amin’s stall is one of many selling bread, biscuits, cigarettes and falafel, all under the watchful gaze of guard towers that rise above the border wall separating the…
April 30, 2018
Features
The Astray Guide to Being a Yoga Wanker
The Enlightened /ɪnˈlʌɪt(ə)nd/ (noun): A group of people who religiously practice yoga, and whose enlightenment through the practice turns inwards and into semi-delusion as to their “goodness”. Synonyms: Yoga wanker, the author * The Enlightened are a fun bunch. They’re the ones calling themselves "yogis" and talking loudly in the organics store about how much they…
April 24, 2018
Yarns
Travelling With My Dead Grandmother
I’ve never been very good at following traditions. I don’t have any annual family meetups, Saturdays are almost never for the boys and I can’t even dedicate myself solely to one coffee shop. So when I travel and I see all these people buying a pin in every country they go to, or religiously tracking…
April 16, 2018
Features
I Found Home Half a World Away
I am part Indonesian, part German; in other words, I am Eurasian. I grew up in Singapore, living there for most of my life. I walked the same streets every other day, met the same friends out by the park and ate the same food at hawker centres as cravings hit. I became familiar and…
April 10, 2018
Features
Baguettes and Bureaucracy
“Oh, pardon madame… pardon monsieur,” I repeated as I bumped through the crowd of people contemplating the camembert selection. I was anticipating accusatory glares. Adrenalin was pumping through my body. The threat of a sudden need for negotiation in a language I didn’t fully have a grasp on loomed over my heart, and my shopping…
April 9, 2018
Features
An Ode to the Holiday Romance
You’ve finally done it; after what seems like years of post-rave early morning, kick-on conversations, half-drunkenly promising each other that you’ll always be friends and that “of course we’ll travel the world together”, the supposed trip of a lifetime has actually fallen into place. You and your friends, by some fucking miracle, have managed to…
April 5, 2018
Yarns
In the Hours After Ink
“You know this is painful spot, yes?” “Yeah man, all good” I reply, full of false bravado and anticipation. The understated industrial style studio is clean. My artist has just finished preparing the bench and the smell of antiseptic is still strong in the air. An arrangement of indoor plants and succulents sits on the…
April 4, 2018

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.