Travelling With a Soul Sister
“Well, that just won’t do at all, Get up, get dressed, let’s go on an adventure.”
Donna Lawther
My definition of a soulmate is a friend from the spirit world who helped you plan your trip to Earth and has a role in guiding you on your intended path..
When you first meet one of your many soulmates, you feel like you have known them forever. Years later, it’s easy to see how they changed the direction of your life for the better. I connected with many soulmates on my year’s trip around Australia. Four stand out in particular. The first was Caroline, whom I met at a youth hostel in Nimbin and travelled around with for two weeks in her car. The second was Maz.
I met Maz in a youth hostel in the Atherton tablelands. The hostel was in a huge Queensland-style wooden house, with screened in verandahs all around the outside. The bunk beds were on the verandah, providing a beautiful cool breeze to the hot Australian night.
I hadn’t been feeling well, so I slept in until noon. By the time I got up most of the backpackers were out exploring. Except for one exotic, black haired girl still sleeping in the bunk beside mine. She opened one eye to look at me.
“Good afternoon” I said. “I’m going to make myself a coffee. Would you like one?”
“Okay,” she said, sitting up with a groan. “Thanks.”
Sipping our coffees, I learned that Maz was from a little country town in Victoria, had been travelling overseas for the past two years, and was looking for somewhere quiet to settle down for a while. She was feeling low and had been lying around in her bunk in that hostel for days.
“Well, that just won’t do at all,” I said. “Get up, get dressed, let’s go on an adventure.”
So we did. Skipping down the road, elbows linked, Maz said that she hadn’t felt so happy and alive for a long time. We hitched all over the Atherton Tablelands, sightseeing. At Tinaroo Dam we found a fun park to play in. It was a playground for adults with a flying fox, tire obstacle course, gigantic maze, et cetera.
The next day we hitched 142 km up the Cape York Peninsula on the northeast tip of Australia. First, down the twisty hill from Kuranda with a quiet guy, then to the Port Douglas turnoff with a good-looking Dutch carpenter, then into Mossman with two teachers. We stopped for a beer in a Mossman pub and chatted to a few Aboriginals, then got a short lift with a local lady, and a longer one to the ferry with two hilarious Aussie guys.
On the barge across the Daintree River we met two old farmers, Vern and Graham, who came up every few weeks to check their little orchard of pineapples and fruit trees. They gave us a lift to the Crocodylus hostel where we met a Torontonian named Debbie. Turns out she was at Dezadeash Lodge the same summer as I worked there.
I remember someone getting mauled by a grizzly in Kluane Park that summer and was amazed to learn that it was her husband. I’m surprised that I didn’t remember her because she carried her flute when she travelled and played it whenever she could.
Maz, Debbie and I decided to go for a walk and came upon Vern and Graham trying to fix their irrigation system. They were growing all kinds of tropical fruits and gave us a very informative tour of the orchard.
We had a few beers with them and went to see their summer home on Cow Bay. It was an open tin shack with the only walls being around the shower room, which consisted of a 40-gallon drum of water heated by an open fire. The beds were hammocks covered by mosquito nets. Maz thought she had found heaven.
They were going back to Cairns to get parts for their irrigation system the next day and offered us a lift. We had planned on heading south soon, so we took them up on the offer. I rode in the back of the truck with Chaos the dog, and Maz rode in the cab.
On the way they told Maz that she could stay at their shack as long as she wanted. They liked the idea of someone keeping an eye on the place to keep the tourists out.
Needless to say, that changed our plans about going south. A few days later we headed back up to Cow Bay to our paradise on the beach. Debbie stayed with us for a couple of days and we had a wonderful time lazing on the beach, skinny dipping in the ocean, walking, laughing, skipping and talking.
The morning Debbie left, she woke us up with some beautiful flute playing from down by the ocean. It sounded magical as it floated on the breeze up the beach.
After Debbie left, Maz and I did lots of exploring, walking and hitching up and down the peninsula. We met lots of locals and made a few friends, including Kon, who took us fishing and snorkelling on his boat.
The funniest hitchhiking ride we got was on the way back from a beautiful swimming hole in our sarongs, both of us squeezed onto the back of a dirt bike! I was happy to be able to add a dirtbike to my list of vehicles that I had hitched rides with.
Eventually it was time for me to leave our paradise. I had decided to head inland to Alice Springs to look for work. Maz decided to hitch part way with me and then continue down to Sydney to get more of her stuff to move back up to Cow Bay.
It took us four days to hitch 500 km to Townsville with many adventures along the way. From there we got on our respective corners. Maz was hitching south to Sydney and I was going west to Alice Springs. Both over 2,000-km journeys.
An hour later another backpacker approached my corner. He was a New Zealander named James and seemed nice enough so I agreed to let him hitch with me. We were so busy getting to know each other that Maz caught a lift without us noticing. I didn’t even get to wave goodbye.
