Why do I write things like "The Alchemist which, incidentally, Rob was reading"? (Where should that question mark go, it looks weird outside the quotes but it's not part of the original quote.) Anyway before I get further distracted and go off on another tangent, which is actually quite apt, the point is, why did I write that? Because there was no incidentally about it, if Rob hadn't been reading The Alchemist, I would never have picked it up from Rachel's shelves.

This is what I love about travelling or more specifically about my life at the moment. Sometimes I think about what I'd be doing if I was still in Leeds and all I can think about is being stuck and trapped and unhappy. And I'm so glad I didn't get that job in Birmingham because while it might've made me a bit happier, all my underlying issues would've still been there but now I feel that I'm addressing the fundamental core beliefs that I have about myself and drastically changing not only who I am but how I fit into the world.

Anyway my life has moved on so much that there's no point in thinking about what would be happening because everything would have been different; if I hadn't booked my tickets to come away, the summer would have been unrecognisable as I'm not sure I would've gone to my friends' weddings but I did and I had a great time and they set me up well for Oz.

So here I am and what I'm trying to say is that it's amazing how things happen and link together and lead you from one thing to the next. Maybe this happened before or maybe I didn't do enough things for it to happen or meet enough people. But it if did, one thing's for certain I didn't have enough confidence to carry them through.

When Rob told me after I'd only been in Oz for a couple of days that he was going to leave me earlier than planned, my little face fell and I thought, How am I going to survive? What's going to happen to me? I can't go travelling on my own, can I?

So I did the only thing I could do and contacted people in Adelaide who I knew, or rather vaguely knew.

Fiona had met a lady from SERVAS who wanted someone to speak at their annual conference which was being held during my last week at Oxfam. Fiona and Kim were busy so it was down to me to me. I didn't know what SERVAS was but when I looked it up, I was pleasantly surprised. It was set up as a peace organisation and to promote peace, it fosters understanding of cultures which it does by setting up a network whereby travellers can go and stay with hosts...for free. I joined SERVAS at the conference (you normally have to be interviewed but they figured my talk was sufficient to allow me in... (the talk I wrote on the train, when will I ever learn?)) and met a lovely girl called Hannah as well as lots of other really friendly people from across the globe.

Anyway I told Hannah that I was going to Oz and she said if I was going to Adelaide, I should go and stay with her parents who were SERVAS hosts. So I did just that. I emailed Maureen and Andrew and went to stay with them and their daughter Lucy for a weekend and had the best time. For those of you who don't know, my middle name is Hannah so they decided that my parents had good taste and it caused us all lots of amusement although I don't think Lucy was amused by having another Lucy in her house which caused a bit of confusion. Maureen and Andrew told me that the last SERVAS traveller they had went to KI to do Wwoofing which gave me the idea that I should come here and do it too.

The whole point in the story is that I'm surrendering to life and am enjoying going down this new path and wondering where it will take me. I would definitely recommend The Alchemist to anyone who hasn't read it but with Eckhart Tolle as my new guru, I was like, yeah, yeah I know all that; I'm spiritually-awakened now me.