I’ve been working lately with Australian adventure
writer, Kez Wickham St. George. We had been talking about cross marketing
between the U.S. and Australia. Kez creates her stories from her real-life
adventures and explorations in the Australian Outback. My kind of research. Kez told me the most
engaging story, I have to paraphrase some of it because, like any good writer,
she told a lot of story. It seems that after the peak of Covid passed, several
families headed out into the remotest of the Outback for a caravan trip. As
luck would have it, they developed an oil leak in the Jeep, lots of acrid
smoke, and had to layover in a ‘caravan bay’ for a couple of days.
I quote, ‘This night one woman caught my eye,
she looked familiar, yet I did not know her, she was from Cairns and traveling
to NSW. I introduced myself, she asked me about my accent, “I’m a Kiwi (New
Zealander)” she informed her family had married into the Maori people. My ears
twitched, as also to have ties to a Maori family, I asked her for names of
where they were? When she said the name of my hometown, so many memories
filling my mind, now the attention of the entire gang around the fire pit was engaged. As this woman said names, times and places, the air around me went
still, the family she was talking about were my next-door neighbors for ten
years [back in New Zealand]. She told me that her sister married into this family. Meant to be? What struck me was what a small world we live
in, I’m sitting around a campfire in Western Australia in a tiny county shire
Dandaragan she knows a family I once knew in a small fishing village Ngunguru
in Northland New Zealand, different countries the Pacific Ocean plus many
thousands of kilometers between us, wow….. The story continues in the Camp fire
trilogy beginning with Metal Mermaid.’
As you read one one of Kez’s adventure stories, maybe
even Metal Mermaid, and when the main characters are in an isolated
‘public layover’, imagine that those two ladies at the next campfire are
reminiscing about their families back in New Zealand…. because now you know Kez's Back Story.
For more on Kez Wickham St. George, Go to her Home Page, or follow her on Amazon, GoodReads, or on her LinkedIn blog.
For more on Jeff Bailey, go to his Home Page, or follow him on Amazon, GoorReads, or on his LinkedIn blog.
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