I’m not sure what happens at 30,000ft perhaps the air is clearer, the gravitational pull of earth just that little lighter or maybe it’s because I’m completely petrified that clarity seems to occasionally occur.

As the ground disappears beneath a blanket of cloud, weightlessness prevails, mentally as well as physically . I cannot do anything now that will affect the future or the past, I have to be at one with myself.

“Love Yourself” was this flights message.

We can spend hours working on business and financial planning, pouring love into our children and partners, devouring our past to get the most out of our future but if we don’t look after us, me, I, Self, what use are we to others?

Arriving in Darwin after circling for 45 minutes to avoid the storm it was hot, wet and windy, exactly how I remember it! I was happy to see Shenanigans still there, the word, the pub is exactly what Darwin was for me 15 years ago and again now.

My back packing days here in Darwin were pre and post my time working in Kakadu. Before Kakadu I was a little lost, on my own after traveling up the Wild West Coast camping on beaches, working at Cable Beach in Broome and melon picking in Kununurra. Post Kakadu was when I really started to know and rely on myself, the independent traveller that had immersed herself in the red dust.

There was an endless amount of love and shenanigans in Jabiru, Kakadu that inspired my second book, wide eyed travelers learning their truth and seeking solace in the arms of others.

It was such a pleasure to become a part of the diverse community in Jabiru that I couldn’t quite bring myself to go back this time, I knew those faces had gone and that the warmth of their energy would have disappeared also.  So, I stuck to the city with its slow pace, walking through the soup like weather, the loud shouts here and there and the many pubs that quench a never ending thirst.

I think Darwin inspires independent thinking and this girl is claiming just a little of that back every day.