Days Like These

“I just want to be authentic, you know?” Yes, sort of. Who is our authentic self? This season we bring you stories from people who are looking for the answer.

Bec never thought of herself as a spontaneous person, but one flirty fire emoji would lead to the biggest surprise of her life.

Dave was always a skateboarding thrill seeker. But he came as close as you can to death without dying the day he decided to take on Devil’s Mountain.

Fred Leone is an award-winning musician and a descendant of a great Garrwa warrior named Garrinjamaji. This is his story.

Edita Mujkic’s story of escaping war-torn Bosnia, and her attempts to keep her family together and safe, in the middle of a war.

Kiwi comedian James Nokise was on a roll, intoxicating audiences with his stand-up. So why can’t he get out of bed?

Karni Liddell was born in Rockhampton with a neuro-muscular wasting disease. Her parents were told she'd never crawl, walk or even live past her teenage years.

Days Like These is back with new host Farz Edraki. Strap in for a brand new season of ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

As Brenden Newton grows up along Sydney’s Northern Beaches in the 1990s, bodyboarding reigns supreme.He loves the physicality, how it brings him into such close contact with the water. And after a fateful trip to Tahiti, he decides to try going pro in the sport.But just as his career takes off, strange thoughts surface over and over, threatening to engulf his mind and his body.And Brenden has to re-build his life before taking on the biggest wave he’s ever encountered.

The day Gough Whitlam is dismissed from office, in November of 1975, Catherine is sitting in the uni library when she hears the news over the loudspeaker. She’s incredulous, incensed.She decides it’s time to formally join the Labor party and, shortly after, Catherine herself is elected as a local member in a harbor-side Sydney council. And it’s there, in the busy, chaotic world of local government, that Catherine learns how to govern, how to compromise, and how to balance her politics and personal life.

Craig was a happy go lucky 19 year old when an accident changes his life forever.Forced to pay off a debt he decides to go work as a miner in Western Australia.What was a temporary gig to get cash becomes a ten year career avoiding responsibility, danger and exhaustion.

Caroline Winter had a perfectly lovely life with her husband, until the day it all changed. Despite everything she tried, she just couldn’t move forward, so she moved sideways instead. This is a story of loss, loneliness and the ways we keep going.

Konrad has dedicated his life to studying the history of the Jewish people. In the 1980s, he’s invited to work with an East German historian to complete his magnum opus, making frequent trips behind the Berlin Wall and back again. But little does Konrad know that while he is researching in East Germany, East Germany is researching him, too.

Chris Ryan grew up in India in the 1980s, so despite being born in Australia, the pop culture of the time was so exotic she could hardly believe it was real. Moving countries is hard, you leave behind a lot and making new friends is hard. This was the challenge for nine-year-old Chris, she felt like an outsider even though she looked like she fitted in just fine. To tackle her problems and make some friends she took some drastic and hilarious measures that would also pay off when she became a grown-up.

It's 1997 and friends Richard and Steve are climbing to the peak of Mount Cook, the tallest mountain in New Zealand. They're carrying 40 kilos of climbing gear and food. But when the climb takes a dangerous turn, much is lost.Then, almost 25 years later, a backpack turns up on Mount Cook. Inside, there's a camera with the film intact, memories long-buried make their way back to the surface once more.

Alan Hale makes a teenage escape from Launceston when he gets work at Taronga Zoo in Sydney. It's the mid 1960s and Taronga's chief benefactor, Sir Edward Hallstrom, is pouring much of his fortune into acquiring new and exotic animals to add to zoo's collection.Alan is apprenticed to the Head Keeper for monkeys and he's charged with cleaning out the cages each morning. He loves the zoo and his job, until he's outwitted by a family of thirty macaque monkeys who disappear over the zoo's walls and into the suburbs of Sydney.

Days Like These is back with a new season. There’s chaos when thirty monkeys escape from a Sydney zoo. Melting snow on a mountainside unearths a long-buried secret. A misfit kid tries to dance her way to fame. And one woman is forced to choose between politics and pot. Starting June 1 more true stories from across Australia about the day when everything changed.

13 11 14 is one of the most recognisable phone numbers in the country. It connects callers to Lifeline’s free crisis support at any time of the night or day, and for some, it’s a call that saves their life. In this bonus episode, we go behind the scenes to meet the volunteers who answer calls from strangers going through the darkest times of their lives.***Warning: this episode talks about suicide***

Penny married John in the 80s. She always believed marriage was forever, and she felt comfortable in her role of wife and mother. Then one day, 30 years into her marriage, she receives a message that shatters her reality.It sets Penny off on a journey to confront the lies and deception that litter her love life.

Aidan Jones is a stand up comedian. Jokes and stories are his stock in trade. But the defining story of his life happened before he was born: when his mum was in her 20s, she returned home from an extended trip around South America only to realise that she'd just fallen pregnant to her Colombian boyfriend. Aidan was the result. It's a series of events that would take almost thirty years for Aidan to untangle, until he finally comes face to face with his real dad.

Think about where you are stored in your brain. Your sense of self and identity, who you are basically. What if your brain decided it wanted to shut a few things down?That's what happened to ABC broadcaster Karen Tighe. As an experience sports journalist she's covered the world's biggest events with a career's worth of memories and experiences to reference.But after Karen contracted encephalitis in 2020, her brain shut off part of those memories and tried to contain her sense of self.

Alyce Nelligan is used to being a trailblazer. Born with minicore myopathy, a rare muscle disease, she was the first kid at her primary school in a wheelchair, and the first person with a physical disability to graduate from her high school in Toowoomba, Queensland. She’s also used to being told what she is and isn’t capable of achieving. But Alyce, hasn’t met a barrier she hasn’t been able to smash through. Until now. A shock pregnancy discovery turns into the fight of her life – will her doctors, and her body, allow her have this baby?

Out of nowhere, the lightning bolt struck both of them. A last minute visit to the beach becomes a bigger ordeal than anyone could have imagined, enough to change the course of their lives. But that’s not exactly how publishers Kevin and Hannah see things. Especially when they keep getting asked about that day over and over again.

Sporting heroes can seem so far away, out of reach like sporting gods. Only in our dreams could we play with such deities. David Jack's had an idol like that, George Best. A Manchester United legend, footballing genius and style icon who was known as the fifth Beatle. Like a lot of kids in Manchester, David was brought up on a diet of football and David's dream was to play with Best. We follow David's story of chance, skill and luck that saw him achieve his dream more than once, just not in the way he imagined.

Barb grew up in a large Irish Catholic family headed by her father Dave, an eccentric and devout man. Barb’s childhood is steeped in her father's faith like the power of saintly examples, repenting for your sins and messages passed to the world through apparitions of Mary, Our Lady. As a young adult, Barb forms her own opinion and walks away from the Church and everything her father believes. That is until Dave cooks up a plan to bring peace to Northern Ireland through prayer, and Barb finds herself, and her faith, thrown right into the middle of it.

It's 2011. Australia is in its tenth year of the War on Terror. Reports of hate crimes are on the rise. And 20-something Nazeem Hussain is a tax specialist.Before he was selling out shows and touring stand-up internationally, Nazeem Hussain wore a suit and clocked in at 9am for his day job.At evenings and weekends, he was also media spokesperson for the Islamic Council of Victoria.And one morning, he gets a phone call that sets him on a path worthy of a spy drama.

Days Like These is back — with spies, comedians, lost parents and a lightning strike — oh, and then there’s a pilgrimage of the agnostic and the atheist, travelling from Sydney to Ireland with a wooden statue of Mary. And that’s just for starters. So join us, for more stories of the day when everything changed.

Days Like These is taking a break for the summer, but while we’re away we wanted to share with you some of our favourite true story podcasts. One Sunday evening, widower Warren Kirk was home alone and decided to do something he'd never done before in his life.He rang an escort service. Hear other great stories like this on Earshot, on Radio National and on podcast.

Days Like These is taking a break for the summer, but while we’re away we wanted to share with you some of our favourite true story podcasts. History, tragedy, and triumph. Marrickville’s Henson Park is an icon of Sydney's inner west.But before the unshakable Newtown Jets footy fans called it home, the community oval was a giant hole in the ground supplying Sydney's building boom. This is one of many great stories on the History Listen podcast.

Days Like These is taking a break for the summer, but while we’re away we wanted to share with you some of our favourite true story podcasts. Holidays can stir up memories of loved ones no longer with us. They can be a time to remember things that were once a bone of contention but now speak to a beautiful understanding between husband and wife. As told by our Executive Producer, Sophie Townsend for the Tall Tales and True podcast.

When horse lover Nicole began to learn about brumbies, there was one who took her breath away on Facebook page: Paleface. He was the most famous stallion of all the wild horses on the Snowy Mountains. A rock star horse with a breathless online following. But after the bushfires of 2019, he disappeared. Fast forward to 2021 when Nicole helps rescue a herd of brumbies from the Mountains: could an angry, malnourished stallion in the back of the horse truck be him? It's up to Nicole to find out, armed with only with an obsession to find out the truth and a d*ck pic.

Growing up in pre-revolution Iran, Jaleh Misaghi dreams of becoming a race car driver. So strong is the pull of rubber on the road, she glues herself to the TV, watching Formula 1, practicing her moves and yearning for the speed of the track. But after the Iranian revolution, Jaheh’s driving quest is shattered – she can’t even get her licence. With the regime cracking down and a young daughter to care for, she must decide on a new road, one that ultimately brings her to Australia and, finally, behind the wheel.

Jacek Koman grew up in theatres, the son of two actors performing their way around Communist Poland in the 1950s and 1960s. At school he’s more interested in learning Russian than stagecraft, by the time Jacek reaches university he decides to follow in their footsteps and go to drama school. But, after a night out ends in a brush with the Polish secret police, Jacek and his brother make a run for the West. Over the years, he rebuilds his career from scratch to become one of the Australia’s most cherished actors on stage and screen, with roles in Belvoir Street plays, The Secret Life of Us and Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge. But Jacek’s rusty Russian also plays a reprising role when he’s called to become the front man of a band performing the songs of the Russian criminal underground.

It’s mid-winter in the Snowy Mountains and in the Thredbo river, where the water is 3.3 degrees, a woman swims laps. She’s wearing just a regular swimsuit, cap and goggles. The swimmer is 40-year-old Joy Symons, attempting an ‘ice mile’, a feat considered by some the most dangerous swim in the world. To achieve this official ice mile, she must give proof that she is alive 45 minutes after the event. A former Australian representative swimmer, she and her family live at the public pool they manage in sunny Rockhampton, Queensland. So what’s brought her to swim in this murky pond with snow falling around her? And how will the grit that made Joy competitive as a young swimmer help her today?

Sonya grew up in Brisbane. But at 26 she decides to move her life to London. Within days of arriving, she meets a beautiful woman at a bar in Soho. They click instantly. They fall in love, get married and build a life together in their adopted city. The only thing missing is… a baby. But after 5 years of trying, it doesn’t happen for them and they decide to call it a day. Not long after Tess and Sonya find themselves on holidays on the Greek island of Crete. And that’s when their life changes forever. Because that’s when they meet HER. She has black hair and her socks are white despite playing in the dust. Apparently she’s been living in the ruins of an old palace by herself. They can’t just leave her there… can they?

Growing up in a small city in south-west China during Mao’s Cultural Revolution led Guojian to join the People's Liberation Army, China’s military. He was a doctrinaire solider until an illegal Australian radio station, and a love song, opened his world.

When Megan met Leon, they thought they were just in for a holiday romance.But it became a long distance thing. Then it became a real life thing. And then it wasn't a thing. Leon had his life sorted out, while Megan felt her real life hadn’t even started. They let each other go, they met other people, they had adventures... but eventually, real life and real love collided – but could it work, all those years later?

One night, fresh from his first big break-up, a 23-year-old Graham Panther is hanging out at a friend’s house when she pulls out a massive bag of weed. Together, they decide to cut loose, forget about their troubles for one night. But what starts as a light-hearted trip soon sours, as Graham finds himself tumbling into a different dimension. And when he returns to reality, things are not as they used to be. Graham created The Big Feels Club as a space to talk about all the big, scary feelings that come with being human. Check them out at https://bigfeels.club/ **Please keep in mind that this story details one person’s experience regarding choices and medication. If it raises anything for you, please seek support from a medical professional. And remember, Lifeline can be reached via text or on 13 11 14 at any time of the night or day.

Emma Jane Holmes is a funeral director by day, but when night falls, her alter ego appears. Emma takes our lead reporter Pat Abboud behind the closed doors of a mortuary, to reveal how the death care industry is dealing with the pandemic and letting us in on her secret double life.

Two men go head-to-head over a set of photographs taken in the Tasmanian wilderness.The images could rewrite the history of a legendary animal, if only they can agree on what they're looking at.Here are the images captured by Neil Waters and the Thylacine Awareness Group.*A previous version of this story claimed that the parties had not met, which was inaccurate and has now been corrected.

At the beginning of 2019, country singer Felicity Urquhart was preparing for a huge year of performing and publicity. She was about to release Frozen Rabbit, her first solo album in a decade. Creating the record had been an extended labour of love for her and her husband, Glen Hannah, also a musician and producer. But the year would unfold in ways that no one saw coming, and the album would mark a turning point in Felicity’s career and her life. ***Warning: this episode contains content to do with suicide***

When Jane Rowe tries her first hit of heroin, the relief it offers is undeniable. Rebelling against her privileged upbringing, she throws herself into the punk scene of 1970s London, rubbing shoulders with rock stars and moguls. But when the party's over and Jane's rattled by the aftershocks of addiction, she sets out to rescue the forgotten victims of drug abuse.

A cold-war thriller, set on the streets of Sydney. Our hero, a man only recently promoted from the ASIO mail room to spy-catcher, finds that chasing a KGB operative doesn’t always follow a James Bond-type script.

Two friends set off on a one-way ticket overseas intending to have the time of their lives. It’s their big adventure before settling down to start “real life’. But, in a small village in Nepal, amongst hikers from all over the world, it all goes terribly wrong... and it’s all they can do just to survive. To take a look at Athena’s photos and to find out more, head to www.athenazelandonii.com/

A brother and sister duo face a life-changing diagnosis, a family secret and flooding rains as they race across state borders to make it home. This is a story about the frustrations and fractures of addiction, the loneliness of life in a pandemic and the wonders of long-distance love. Mostly, it’s about the ties that bind, and the people who are always there for us, even when you don’t expect it.

One evening, a team of scientists realise that a tracking device they'd attached to a bull shark off the coast of NSW has come ashore and is now leaving a GPS trail all over Wollongong and surrounds. This tag, once attached to a bull shark's dorsal fin, contains valuable scientific data that could help unlock the secrets of the deep, and of the apex predators who call it home. But will a team of researchers, citizen scientists and a social media frenzy be enough to track down a lost shark tag before the signal goes dead?

Cut Copy. Evermore. Bliss n Esso. British India. Tame Impala!You've got your tickets. Your favourite band is headlining and your mates are by your side.A music festival in amongst the wild animals at a South Australian Zoo ... it could have been so right.So how did everything go so, so wrong?

Singer-songwriter Shellie Morris still remembers the first time she heard Yothu Yindi's Treaty. She had left her adopted white family in Sydney when "Treaty yeah, Treaty now" blared through her car radio, and changed her forever. The song would become part of the soundtrack of her incredible journey to find her Aboriginal birth family in the Northern Territory and to work out where, and what, home really is.

Tai Snaith has always loved animals, especially horses. After growing up on a farm, she thought she was used to the practical cycles of life and death that Australian country life can throw at you.But when her beloved horse Ziffy dies, she shares an unbelievable moment with him… it’s on the very boundary of the known and the unknown. She knows this bond will last forever.

How do you orchestrate a meeting with your hero? For Tate Sheridan it was simple: a clandestine operation involving a long and heartfelt letter, a demo CD, some wrapping paper and sneaky dash backstage at a big Elton John gig.Two years later, Tate was to join his now mentor on tour, performing in front of 38,000 Elton John fans playing the actual piano of a real life rock and roll god. Thanks to Tate Sheridan for scoring this episode and for allowing us to use his music. Tracks in the episode are 'Life Was Lonely', 'Fade to Black' and 'Angel Man'