In the vast landscape of Australia one has the opportunity almost everywhere to spontaneously change one’s life lastingly, to get out, to follow the call of the wilderness. One parks one’s car on the roadside, hoists one’s rucksack onto one’s shoulder and walks out at a right angle into the forest, the desert, or the marsh. In most parts of Europe, when one does this one would shortly reach the next highway motel, or the next village, or the next farm – even before one has peed wildly against a tree for the first time. In Australia, however, it is entirely possible that after such a march, one will encounter nobody for a very long time, no street, and no hotel – perhaps not for the rest of one’s life. How long this ‹rest› is, more often than not, depends on one’s fate – and on talents that one does not necessarily demand or expect of cityslickers.
First Publication: 6-4-2014
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