In the midst of countless unexpected complications (bad schedules, stuff to do, personal problems, journey delays), one thing from my stay in Marlo remained: I saw Bailey again, after our amazing trip in the Middle-East, and before going on around the world.

To be honest, I would have never heard of Marlo, a small village of 340 inhabitants – they call that a town in Australia – lost on the South Coast of Victoria, if not for her. We had agreed on meeting again when we parted in Cairo airport, almost six months ago now (God time flies) – and despite the lack of communication means, despite the vague schedule of my hitch-hiking, we did.

And thus I ended up there – where the Snowy meets the sea.

I left Canberra in the morning, trying to first get a bus to the outskirts of the city before thumbing a ride on the highway. After a bit of research, I finally found the right bus – and the driver gave me a free ride.

“Because you got this,” he said while pointing at my backpack, “and this,” pointing at my Lonely Planet.

I had six different drivers this day, including a farmer, an old Filipino lady in a rusty pick-up which looked to be coming straight out of a Mexican village, a young pregnant woman and, the last one, a former expedition leader in Africa. “Touristic” expeditions, but having heard of all the things the tourists had to go through there, they were from the brave kind.

A bit before reaching our destination, we learned that a bushfire was raging west of Orbost, only a few kilometers on the other side of Marlo. I tried to call Bailey, but in vain, the power having been cut in the the whole region. The radio news assuring that the fire had not reached Orbost yet, we decided to continue our journey.

We thus arrived in a unpowered, dark Marlo, but (almost) unsurprisingly, we found the pub, the Marlo Hotel, opened and still busy. There, we asked for Bailey – she was working there at the time – and we finally found someone who could gave us the direction to her place.

And my driver finally dropped me in front of her house.

“Is it… José? Oh my God it’s hiiiiim!”
(Bailey, when I got off the van in the dark)

As Bailey was moving to Melbourne, I could not stay for very long in her house (she was busy finishing her preparations) and I ended up staying at the farm of Sean, a friend of Bailey, and his father Eric, in Orbost.

Orbost is the “big town” nearest from Marlo (only sixteen kilometers from there). Big town meaning 3,000 inhabitants in Australia. I thoroughly enjoyed my stay there, enlightened by Eric’s deep culture (he is teaching History in Orbost’s Secondary College) and Sean’s musical abilities at guitar and keyboard.

I would have never heard of Marlo and Orbost if not for Bailey, this is for sure.

And I would have missed so much.