The guys bustle into the store, jovial and sparkling with fresh energy. They are dressed in traditonal 'Kluft', sturdy black vests over white shirts, well used black top hats and rustic black boots. Settling down to surf the net, they are here to chill a little before the next leg of the journey.
They are on a traditional pilgrimage, a coming of age ritual dating back to the middle-ages. Once they leave their home-towns, they are forbidden to return for three years, exiled on the outside of a zone 50-miles wide. In the interim they travel the world - carpenters by trade. They help build houses, working with the locals, making friends and learning the slang, then, off again, on the next.
They seem happy, naturally happy, and I imagine all of the adventures and ups and downs they must have encountered along the way. They are not tourists they sya; Australia is not Ayers Rock and the Opera House. Australia is the people, the in-betweens. The world is the journey.
