Saturday, Dec 21, 2013 at 17:18
A beautiful and accurate description Tim. Thank you.
I never knew there was an organisation called couchsurfing. First time I heard about it was in
Derby a few years back from an Aussie lady who offered me a place to stay with her and her family. We met at a rodeo but had infact met briefly a few weeks earlier on a cattle station. She was a member and said the way she decided I was ok was that I was staying with people she knew - the cattle station.
I have been couchsurfing in Australia for 5 years without knowing it. I definitely consider myself a traveller and not a tourist.
Everywhere I go, people invite me back and sometimes I have been back a dozen times. I get stuck in like one of the family with the washing and cleaning and helping out around the house and garden.
In my couchsurfing I have learned about so many different Australian lifestyles. I have stayed with high society people who have a
young Prince Charles photo in their living room. He couchsurfed once there too although it was probably called something else, maybe a royal visit.
Drug addicts, cattlemen, Aboriginal Communities, mechanics, janitors,
post office workers, truckies, teachers, artists, run-away mums, paraglider pilots, business men, electricians, bank managers .... the list goes on. All have opened their homes to me.
Australian couchsurfing taught me that there is a better way, a better society than the one I live in. I doubt I would have discovered that in a hotel and on a tour bus.
And yes, I have returned the favour in South Africa with many different nationalities, including Australian. But I am still deeply in debt to the philosophy of Passing it On.
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