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Feature
Please Remind Me I’m Real
BEEP, beep, beep This tunnel is one of my biggest fears. I’m driving my car on the M5, about to go through the airport tunnel. Horns are blaring since no one likes peak hour, yet the pace is consistent. The lights that line the walls start zooming past, and my mind does a little trick.…
8 minRead time
Story
Tarot Cards in Turkey
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…
8 minRead time
Story
Chasing the Dragon in Paris
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…
9 minRead time
Feature
A Crisis on the Glacier
I arrived in Stockholm, Sweden, in the midst of an unprecedented Europe-wide heatwave, the first overt sign of the climate crisis I noticed. My arsenal of heavy duty Kathmandu gear would sadly go unworn. It was a Friday morning and I made my way to the Riksdag, Sweden’s Parliament, where I knew Greta Thunberg would…
9 minRead time
Story
Why I Returned to Timor Leste
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…
12 minRead time
Story
Secret Diary Of An Au Pair
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…
7 minRead time
Story
Yet Still You Wander
“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…
7 minRead time
Current Affairs Feature
A Postcard from Dili
Celebrating an independence vote in the country I called home Dili in August is always dry, dusty, tired; parched brown after months without rain and still facing weeks before the wet season rains arrive. The wide flat land at Tasi Tolu on the city’s western edge is a dustbowl; we’re walking there from where we…
13 minRead time
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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.