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Life’s Little Joys
The finest and best restaurant on Koh Tao is a cosy little place called Mama’s. The eponymous Mama is a middle-aged blob of a woman, chubby and churlish, who makes the best chicken soup you may ever set spoon to in your entire life. Her husband is Yeh, a chuckle-faced and kind-eyed man with a…
Too Many Dicks on the Beach
“It’s a cock, girls,” Frank announced with glee. Grace and I exchanged eye-rolls – we’ve seen our share of penises; we knew what it was. To be fair though, this one was plastic and hanging from a string around a 70-year-old man’s beefy neck. With oily fingers, Frank gave the nob of the penis a…
A Month at Moria Refugee Camp
“They put you on a night for your second shift? Bit harsh, but don’t worry: nights are generally quiet. Mostly we sleep unless someone comes knocking”. Moria Refugee Camp is situated on the Greek island of Lesvos, the closest European island from Turkey. It’s the biggest camp on the island, and an estimated 6000 asylum…
When Your Travels Are a Shit Storm
They say that opposites attract, but every day, I'm realising that shit attracts shit. For example, I'm using Notepad to write this because Word isn't working on my computer – funny how life seems to enjoy aligning every aspect, right down to even the most irrelevant. I had my day planned, and for it to…
Palestine’s Other Oppressor
Pre-dawn raids are commonplace in this part of the world. Doors are battered down in the wee hours of the morning and stun grenades are lobbed inside, with authorities rushing in – torches blinding those in their path – to snatch an unwitting victim from their slumber. They are handcuffed, blindfolded and thrown in the…
Stitched Back Together in Thailand
A harsh light pierces my eyes from a low swinging globe above my face. I am lying on a bed. No. It’s a gurney. It creaks in rhythm with the tight pulling of my arm.  A young Thai woman sits on a wooden stool next to me, threading me back together like a seamstress. She…
Brigitte & Otto
I guess you could say my family has always been fairly open to having guests stay in our home. There are eight children (chill – not all from the one mum – my dad just got hitched a couple of times), with me being the youngest. Though we’ve virtually all moved out, our house still…

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.