You're Going To Australia

It was ten past five on a Tuesday, and I received the booking confirmation for my stay at Rydges Hotel in Kalgoorlie, Australia.

It sounded like a nice room.

The only problem is that I did not make this booking.

This booking confirmation was sent to my personal email address. And yes, it was my name: Nathan Broadbent. It looked like a legit email from [email protected]. It didn't seem like an obvious phishing attempt or anything unusual. (Apart from the fact that I didn't book it.)

I checked all my credit cards. Nothing. No purchases for a random hotel in the middle of Western Australia.

I wondered if this was supposed to be a surprise. Was my wife planning a surprise trip for us and the hotel accidentally sent the confirmation to me?

I looked up events in Kalgoorlie around those dates. There was a St Barbara’s Parade on Sun 7 Dec 2025, and a Quiz Night at Miner’s Rest on the 10th. Nothing stood out.

Was I being summoned to Kalgoorlie?

For a brief moment, I was tempted to book a flight and just turn up on those dates and see what happened. If I sat at the hotel bar, would a stranger sit down next to me and strike up a conversation? Would men in suits appear and lead me to a car, then drive me to some kind of top secret meeting?

Anyway, I called the hotel.

A lady answered the phone and asked, "Are you Nathan Broadbent?"

I replied, "Yes. I just got a confirmation email but I didn't make any booking."

"Sorry about that, I chose the wrong name from the search results. That booking was for a different Nathan Broadbent."

Normally this is where the story would end, but then I remembered that I had posted this on X only a few days earlier:

What are the chances. (Probably not that low when you spend as much time on the internet as I do.)

If we do ever go for a drive around Australia, I'll be sure to take a detour and stop off in Kalgoorlie.