Airlie Beach is located on the east coast of Australia in the state of Queensland between Cairns and Brisbane and should come relatively close to paradise. At least to what we in the western world understand by it.
White palm-fringed powdered sugar beaches, average annual temperatures of a pleasant 25 degrees Celsius and an emerald-green sea as far as the eye can see. That is the home of Harry Kemp.
And yet the young man was drawn out into the world – or perhaps because of it.
Harry worked early on in his parents’ business – a boat rental company for tourist trips to the famous Whitsunday Islands and the Great Barrier Reef. But his world was music. Whenever possible, he played his guitar, wrote songs and his own lyrics.
After Harry, born in 1993, successfully finished school, he first completed a three-year apprenticeship as a carpenter. A hard time – Harry worked 10 hours and more every day, was on the road for months “on assembly”, often under extremely difficult conditions. “A tough job in a rough environment,” Harry says today, but he wouldn’t want to miss those experiences. However, it quickly became clear to him – a life “on assembly”, but also in the “boating business” in Airlie Beach was unimaginable for him. He appreciates his father’s work and speaks of him and his mother with respect and admiration. Nevertheless, he was drawn out into the world. First across the Australian continent with a converted camper van. Later to Indonesia and Europe.
Harry wants to get to know the world and is open to everything he encounters on his journey. “You have to be humble,” says the ever-positive and optimistic young man, but he is happy to pay this price for freedom. Currently, Harry lives and works in the Palatinate region of southwestern Germany. At “Camphill,” an anthroposophical residential community of disabled and non-disabled people, he is doing “voluntary service” and in return receives room and board and a small allowance. He calls his current job “very rewarding,” which still leaves him enough time for his music.
What will happen after that? “We’ll see – I let it flow….”