Mm-hmm

... you know, ev- everything that I thought, like, looked like success, I had it back then.

And, you know, I was really proud of myself, my self for it.

And- Around my late 20s, I was kind of doing what most 28-year-old males were doing at the time.

I had my eye on settling down, so I'd got married.

We bought our first home.

Um, as I said, my, my career, my workplace was, was peaking.

Mm-hmm

So eventually that led you to Kathmandu.

That's one of the main themes of the book.

It's this idea that Kathmandu was the end of the hippie trail in the 1970s.

And when people got to Kathmandu, it was either go home or start making your way back towards Europe or just carry on, just stay there for as long as you can and eke out a bit more, a few more weeks on the road because there was not really anywhere further you could get with the mountains in the way and whatever.

And at that time you couldn't go into China, which was, of course, which is over the Himalayas from there.

So I love that idea that it really is this sort of end of the road.

It's the restaurant at the end of the galaxy.

So what advice do you have for people, young or old, in building that kind of writing life that you have?

Do you have, are you drawing on travel that existed before you were a writer? I mean, are there experiences that you had when you were just sort of wandering the world with your backpack that have made it into your stories?

Oh, certainly.

Particularly the early stories that I wrote.

And I reference one particular trip frequently.

It was my first trip to India that I went on in 2011, 2012, something like that.

And it was my first time out of Europe properly.

And I just remember I've got this avid memory now of getting out of the airport first thing in Mumbai and being in the back of a taxi and taking that freeway drive between the slums and looking out of the window as...

I'm curious, do you write about stuff, is everything that's in your books things that you've experienced either directly or tangentially, or do you have to speculate about things? What happens when you can't go to a place? How do you write about that, or do you not?

And so what is it? Are the genre expectations for these travel adventure books the same as a thriller or are there specific genre expectations that are different for this genre?

I think I just didn't really understand.

the genre the idea of genre expectations that well because there's they're sort of detective novels but they're international so that the premise of the books is that when someone goes missing in a packers or whoever goes missing in a foreign country no one knows where they've gone my guys are the people who go and find them and track them down in the back alleys of Kathmandu or the Berlin underworld or wherever so that was the sort of premise but it's hit so many genres that it probably misses them all in some spectacular alignment sort of way because it's sort of amateur detective it's international thriller whatever if that's even a genre you know but it doesn't really I think the point is that I've now spent a minute or two explaining to you what this story is in my other series I can say to you It's about ancient relics, secret civilizations, curses, one woman to save the world.

You've got an idea what that is, right? You've got it in your mind already.

So for me, I think actually having that tight, having that sort of in line is the reason that series is successful.

And the other one is not as successful as I wanted at the time.

So how would you, what would you recommend for that?

That's true.

I'm sure you may have the number of actual league debutants this season, but are there any players in particular that you've seen get the taste at the top level who have really impressed you this year?

There's a couple that spring to mind.

You look at some players at our football club that may have played in our talent pathway many years ago and may have disappeared for whatever reason, but they've returned to our football club and contributed significantly.

I look at the likes of Luke Michael, who was a star of our Talent Pathway programs and went away for a while, returned, battled some injury and returned to get his opportunity this season, which was fantastic.

I look at the likes of Evan Druitt, who we're really, really pleased to have brought to our football club a couple of years ago as he finished up his time at subiaco when he got his opportunity just last weekend um um as a as a as a little fast little outside mid and and small forward um player that he is um so it's players like that that we've seen come through our pathways i mean ryan gallant another one it was a former talent pathway player for us who'd spent some time away from the football club back at uh amateurs and the like returning to our football club and getting their opportunity in the league side.

And I think that's always been the strength of our football club, Regan.

As a club, we've always operated that sort of 70% to 80% range in terms of the amount of players on our list that are locally zoned players, players from our from our zone.

It must be really pleasing seeing those guys thrive at the top level and I guess gives some excitement for the others coming through as well to show that you can go to the next level out of waffle football.

You've said you started working there, but how did you go along this pathway? How did you get involved in coaching and

AFL? I played all the way through.

I was a junior that frothed this sport of ours.

I had a dad heavily involved as a coach, a grandfather heavily involved as a coach.

So I had a snowboarding incident where I fractured my L4 and L5 in my lower spine.

And it became quite clear quite quickly that continuing to play a contact sport was might end in some permanent damage.

So the decision was made in my 18th year that stop.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm

... that you do find at, at junior level.

Um, and we want this to be a, a twice-a-year thing, so this will be August.

We'll run one before the community season starts, the home and away season starts next year, and again, to close out the year.

And look, we're, we're hoping to fill the room with 80 to 100 people.

Um, it's free.

We're gonna put on food and, and drink for everyone that, that, that does come.

Yeah.