Kiwi Coincidence

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This photo was taken at Milford Sound, in New Zealand’s south island. We were staying in a hostel that was like something from a horror movie. It consisted of log cabins in a forest and was powered by a generator that went off at 11pm. We were only there for two days, waiting for enough snow to get some snowboarding in Wanaka, a few hours north. While we were there I got chatting to an Australian guy who had a really girly name, like Hillary or Lindsay. We talked the usual small-talk bullshit for some time before he asked me where I was from. I told him Scotland and he asked where. He had been in Scotland once. I said Fort William and he was like No way! That’s one of the places I visited! He said he’d met a guy while he was travelling and had stayed in this guy’s house while he was there. He wondered if I knew the guy, even though he was a bit older and Fort William’s not that small a place. Neil Robinson, he said. I asked what Neil looked like. He described my travelling buddy’s big brother, Neil Robinson, exactly. He said he’d stayed in a chalet in the family’s garden, the same chalet that we so often got drunk in. He also described my friend as a little blonde girl who had taken a bit of a fancy for him. I went and got her. She was as amazed as I was at the coincidence. Shortly after that we left there to drive east. The snow gods were not smiling on us that summer.

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