I am on another journey today. Strange, but my journey today started long ago.

Way back in 99, my wife and I flew from London to Munich. We stood in different passport queues and hers was way faster than mine. I saw her chatting to some suave chap on the other side and wondered who had the audacity to chat up my wife. I got through and met this guy who seemed very pleasant. My wife who is in the travel business had assisted him through passport control as his visa was wrong and was only valid for the next day. He was off to Kitzbuhl to meet his girlfriend and we were off to Saalbach, both skiing resorts in Austria. He thought that they might end up in Saalbach. Like good South Africans, we agreed to have a beer if we saw them.

And that should have been the end.

A couple of days later we bumped into him and his girlfriend in Saalbach. We had a little chat and declared that we now really do have to have that beer. But we didn’t, probably because these are things that you just say.

And that should have been the end.

We woke up the next morning and rushed down to breakfast. I am rather an eager beaver when it comes to getting busy on my snowboard! Sitting at a breakfast table in our pension was this same couple. The beer idea was starting to seem preordained. It turned out that they had the room next door to ours in the pension. We all got on famously and had ourselves an awesome skiing holiday. We also drank more than just that one beer!

And that should have been the end.

You see, they lived in Cape Town and we lived in Johannesburg. Still, we were invited to their wedding. Later they were transferred to Joburg and were actually staying at our house when our first son was born. We spent some good time together through the years that we lived on the Reef. We were then transferred to Cape Town and just a couple of months later, they too were back here.

Now this cannot be the end!

My son turned 7 a couple of weeks ago and so they came over for a braai. He told me about one of his friends that had recently packed in the corporate world, resigned and decided to run a charity in order to make a difference in the world. I became a little interested as the story he was telling was so similar to mine. Now through the years that we had known each other, I had met this particular chap many times. We had always gotten on well and yet I had never known that our paths and outlooks were so similar. So much for the value of party small talk! I got his number intending to give the guy a call.

But this guy called me!

He too had shared a meal with these mates of mine and was amazed by the story my friend told him about me. I cannot begin to tell you how wonderful it is to find a fellow traveller on this divergent path of mine.

Today we are going walking in the mountains. Who knows what will come from today but I have a feeling that this meeting is not born out of chance!