Lost travel diary from 90s sparks internet search for Aussie traveller

A Melbourne man stumbled across a long-lost diary documenting a wild backpacking adventure, sparking a mad hunt for its owner.

Kate Bettes and Escape

2 min read

January 24, 2021 - 9:33PM

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It reads like the plot of a first novel. One where a long lost diary documenting a wild backpacking trip in the nineties is found by a curious member of the public.

Except, it actually happened.

Members of the popular Reddit group r/australia were recently spurred into action when one of their members asked for helping tracking down the owner of an old travel diary they’d found.

“I found someone’s amazing travel journal. Please help me get it back to its original author,” wrote u/DoubleRiver.

The diary appeared to have been written in 1999. Picture: r/australia Reddit / u/DoubleRiver

u/DoubleRiver (who was reported by Daily Mail as being one David Ryan) went on to say the diary had been found “in the top cupboard of an apartment I rented in Yarraville” in Melbourne, and seemed to have been written in the late nineties to the year 2000.

“(It) makes me feel weirdly free perusing it,” they added. “I bet the author would love to relive these memories.”

Replying to comments from other users, u/DoubleRiver said he was driven by “(the author’s) sadness at losing a prior journal and the memories it helped him recall.”

The writer’s adventures took him to Singapore. Picture: r/australia Reddit / u/DoubleRiver

The writer’s series of excellent and bodacious adventures included arriving on the backpacker mecca that was Khao San Road in the nineties, soul-searching in Phra Nang Bay, dodging “cyclo scammers in Medan”, taking jungle trains through Malaysia and still finding the time to draw intricate cartoons of mates saying “‘NO!’ to drugs”. (What you don’t end up scribbling down to pass the time on hair-raising bus trips in south east Asia).

Bit by bit, (and in between commenting on the journaller’s excellent handwriting) the r/australia community put together the clues. “Seems from the first page it’s a kiwi …” pointed out one commenter, referring to the mystery writer’s comment on ‘”I didn’t want to following the Kiwi hordes to London & Europe.”

Other leads included names of fellow adventurers that shared in the mystery writer’s travel shenanigans.

The diary had some cracking memories of travels in the late nineties. Picture: r/australia Reddit / u/DoubleRiver

Eventually, sharp-eyed internet sleuths discovered that New Zealand band Ziko shared the names of some of the protagonists of the diary.

“After several days of dead silence across the board, I finally got a response from one of the people I messaged on Facebook who shares the same name as a member of the band. This person now lives in Germany so I was not certain it was the right guy. Anyway, they just replied with ‘try g**********@gmail.com’,” wrote Ryan

And fast forward to a few days later:

“UPDATE: I found someone’s amazing travel journal, and r/australia helped me find its original author. Link to original thread in the comments.”