Inverness, Scotland. On the shores of Loch Ness. I was in my 20’s and backpacking solo around Europe. I can’t truly say I wanted to be there, but it seemed I was meant to.

So there I was.

I’d been in town a few days already – long enough fort its initial novelty to be replaced by the kind of homesickness which kept me from staying in any one place too long.

But I’d just missed the bus out, so locked my pack at the station and went for a walk.

Needing to pee I looked for the nearest convenience, a grove of trees. And just beyond that a creek – well, more of a drain really – and an old man. He called me over. We swapped smokes for beers and chatted. The previous year his wife had died; he’d moved into a hostel. He shared stories of fishing on the Loch with his grandfather and I shared stories of my life in Australia.

Time went by.

Eventually, we headed back to town together, and chatted until it was time to part ways. I went to shake his hand, but to my surprise he gave me a hug. Unusual, I thought, for a man of his generation.

“You’ve made an old man very happy.”

I was too, because my homesickness had vanished.

In the months that followed I saw many things – the Eiffel Tower, Mona Lisa, mountains and glaciers. Things we are meant to see, I guess. But none came even close to that afternoon by the drain, the friend I made, and the realisation that home is not a place – but an experience.