A stranger paid my family’s motel bill – kindness is indeed alive in our selfish world | Michelle Macfarlane

Someone covering our stay as we chaotically packed our car reminds me to look for opportunities to help my fellow human beings

In a world often focused on the individual, I recently had a countercultural experience on a road trip with my family. We had embarked on our first ever road trip: my husband and I and the four kids, aged 12, 10, eight and five. Full of optimism and adventure, we were on our way to Carnarvon Gorge, a beautiful, unspoiled national park in the middle of Queensland. It being such an isolated destination, we allowed ourselves three days for the journey out there.

We had spent months preparing, booking accommodation and planning the route, and our first stop was a small country town called Chinchilla. Its claim to fame is the enormous watermelon that sits in the middle of town and a free children’s water park surrounded by native parklands.