Fate

Six years ago on a reconnaissance mission through Far North Queensland we drove up the mountain range we now live on. It was a very cold, foggy morning so we were unable to see anything but the pavement just ahead of our vehicle. Oblivious to the lush green mountains and fields we passed, the area we settled into just over a year ago when we returned, we continued on. We had breakfast in a little café at the top of the range, the first place we could see outside the persistent low-lying clouds. The town was sparse, not much there at all. The landscape was bleak, brown, and dry. We kept on down the highway through an unfenced grazing property, signs warning us to beware of wandering stock. A wildfire was burning unchecked on the roadside. Who in the hell would live out here? was the question I asked myself over and over as we made our way to the next settlement, a dismal, depressing cowtown.

Now, six years later, I know the answer to that question.

We are living on the very same cattle station the wildfire burned.


There's no such thing as chance;
And what to us seems merest accident
Springs from the deepest source of destiny.

-- Johann Friedrich von Schiller