Tag Archives: chance encounter

Chance Encounters: Gold Coast

It’s really cool, how you can have fascinating chance encounters by being friendly and keeping an eye out.

Somewhere along the beaches of the Gold Coast, while hiking along the beaches, I came across a bunch of guys from Sydney, playing a game a beach cricket, and decided to join in.  Never having watched or played cricket before, I found it a really fun and fascinating game.  At its core, you have a batsman defending a post (a small tube stuck in the sand), and a pitcher throwing a ball at the batsman / post.  If the pitcher hits the post, the batsman is out.  Otherwise, the batsman gets to keep swinging at the ball until he connects – at which point he has to run to the pitcher and back to the post before somebody either catches the ball, or picks up the ball and pegs the post.

This being the beach, of course the dominant strategy is to hit the ball into the ocean.  I’ve no doubt the game is more complicated than I’ve described, but I had fun!  And I managed to score quite a few points too!

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Chance Encounters: Byron Bay

After a chance encounter in Byron Bay, I’ve got a new nickname: Zen

While camping out at Byron Bay, I arrived back at the campsite one night to see a bonfire off into the distance.  Hoping there might be s’mores, I headed over and check it out, and discovered a bunch of 20ish Aussie blokes, who all leapt up and yelled “hey, its Zen!”  I rolled with the punches, and thirty seconds later was having a beer with them.

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