Postcards from Australia

People you meet along the way change travelling into life changing experiences. As I was growing up, I have realised pretty fast that I want to see the world and all it has to offer. As a child, I was absolutely fascinated by stories of travellers going to the furthest parts of the world, exploring the arctic, visiting small villages of South and Central America, walking the coasts of the oceans I have never heard of or observing the wildlife of the rainforest so far away from me. All those stories fascinated me, and made me realise that the world is so much bigger than the town where I grew up in. However, as fascinated as I was, travelling was so far out of my reach- the stories, well, stayed stories.

As I grew up, this longing for exploring the world just grew bigger with me. When I finished high school, for the first time in my life I found myself able to afford travelling. And it was exactly what I did- as soon as A Levels were finished, I packed my backpack and just like countless of other 18-year-olds I got on the train that would take me on a journey around Europe. For the first time I found myself in all the places I read about in books and heard in geography lessons. I walked the streets of Barcelona that were not only made out of Zafón’s words in The Shadow of the Wind, I sat down with coffee in cafes where all the literary legends I admired also drank their coffees in Vienna, I learnt history of my own country in Berlin. This experience was so formative, not only in further expanding my understanding of the world, but also in feeding my curiosity of what else there is to explore.

This curiosity drove me to promise myself that I would apply for the R&A scholarship as soon as I saw the applications open. However, as I was applying I didn’t really expect the lesson that I would be taught just in the first place that I’d visit.

All of the travelling that I have done before, whether it was my first interrail around Europe, exploring the natural beauty of Scotland or backpacking around Uruguay and Argentina, I have never felt such bittersweet sorrow about leaving. As my time in Australia slowly comes towards the end, I started thinking about my experiences so far not in terms of places but people I have met along the way. I suppose life has this incredible ability to teach you lessons you need to learn at a very specific time in your life, and I couldn’t be more grateful for mine.

This project was supposed to be from the very beginning an exploration of how nature can support mental health through community building and connection with yourself and other people in general. However, never in my life have I met more fascinating and interesting people just by showing up in a community garden with an open mind to just simply connect with others. For the past two months I have learnt that you can make friends in the most unexpected places with the most unexpected people and learn so incredibly much from each other, even if only for a brief period of time. During my time in Melbourne, I learnt so much curiosity and wonder about the surrounding world from a 6-year-old I worked with in the community garden. In most cases, we, as adults, believe that we are the only ones that can teach children about the surrounding world. What incredible fools we are! I have never seen so much wonder in response to the world, so much curiosity, so many questions I simply never bothered to ask. I have very quickly realised that I’m learning so much from this little human being, that I’m learning lessons that change the way I’m thinking about the world. Since then, the community garden gifted me so much more than just time in nature- it gave me a community that I longed for, not even realising how much I needed it. I have been welcomed into the family of most incredible people that will stay with me much longer than I knew them for.

My time in Australia slowly comes to an end, but the lesson from this time is clear: people you meet along the way are the greatest gift you can get. During my time here I have learnt about the importance of curiosity and wonder from a 6-year-old, I was shown how imagination and storytelling can make life so much more magical and exciting by a 9-year-old and I was shown the meaning of true generosity and openness towards strangers by a family of five. I also learnt that curiosity to get to know the world can only grow, not diminish, with age. Meeting people so much older than me who walked the whole El Camino at the age of 70, who explored mountain ranges of Mongolia and Nepal and are just about to hike the entirety of the length of New Zealand made me realise exploration is not just for the young, it is vital for all of us. It feeds what is at the heart of being a human being- the awe of the surrounding world.

As I’m writing this reflection it’s genuinely hard to fight off the tears. This bittersweet feeling of having experienced so much kindness and generosity and having to leave it is hard, but at the same time it fills me with so much gratitude for this experience. I’m more than ever grateful for nature and its ability to connect me more not only with myself, but also with other people. All these experiences keep on reminding me how fascinating the world is, and how great it is to share it with others.

As always, if you’d like to connect- whether virtually or in-person in one of the places I’m visiting, don’t be afraid to say hi:)