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Yarns
Fishing For Crabs
I squeeze my dad's hand in excitement. "Look!" I exclaim. There’s a splash in the water where the ocean meets the sand. A crab scurries along. There are little crab holes all along this Fijian beach, where crustaceans hide from the eager three-year-olds trying to imprison them. With pail and spade in hand, we bundle…
February 7, 2018
Yarns
The Longest Journey Home
The lights have just come up and I’m high as a kite. The last DJ is putting records into boxes and the crowd is dispersing. I look at my friends around me. Their eyes are dinner plates. “Woah…” Mag says, who has spent the last hour convinced he is a pirate in a medieval era…
February 6, 2018
Yarns
A Shit Storm in Tokyo
“Could you excuse me just a second,” I say calmly. But I think the look on my face has given something away. “Everything okay?” he replies. “Yeah, I think I just have to go do a sneaky vom.” It’s so not a vom. “Oh shit, really? You all right?” Fuck no. “Yeah, all g. Just…
January 31, 2018
Story Turkey
Fatherland
It is so cold in Istanbul that it cramps my spine. Hiding my face from the cutting air, I see an old lady chopping painted doorframes small enough for a stove or a fireplace, bracing herself for winter. She is too poor to have the choice of not breathing toxic fumes until spring. Childhood memories,…
January 22, 2018
Features
A Break-Up Letter to Booze
Dear Alcohol, I’ve been thinking a lot about our relationship lately. I’m not very happy, and no -- it’s not me; it’s you. Most of the time, I am an interesting, composed young adult. But all it takes is a small dose of you, and my hidden feelings are aired out for display. I then…
January 18, 2018
Yarns
A Pint of Purpose
The Orkney Tourist Board strongly advises not going to Orkney to see the Northern Lights. It admits that yes, you can see the Northern Lights in Orkney, but if you're visiting purely to do so, you'll most likely end up disappointed. So here I am, in Orkney, for no reason other than to see the…
January 15, 2018
Features
On Being a Third-Culture Kid
When I was 14, after spending 10 years growing up in three vastly different countries, I moved back to the place I was born: Australia. I was making this move from Germany, where racism was taboo due to its traumatic history, yet its people were still a proud nation with high nationalistic ideals. Even teenagers…
January 8, 2018
Open Letter
An Open Letter to Forgotten Hostel Friends
It’s a special type of one-night stand. For a brief, shining moment, you’ve met your new best friend: the person you relate to more than anyone else on this earth. By the next morning, you’re halfway to your next destination and halfway to forgetting all about them. Maybe you add them on Facebook. After a…
January 2, 2018
Story
Bush Nuts
On the 5th of November 2015, to the best of my knowledge at the time, I died in a small rural hospital five hours south of Perth. I’d been camping in the bush in Karri tree country with my then-boyfriend, Jasper. The two of us had a week to kill before we went travelling, so…
January 9, 2017

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.