British backpacker ditches travel buddy at campsite and drives off

A British backpacker has explained why she ditched her travel partner at a campsite and carried on with their once-in-a-lifetime trip without her.

Gemini Slater, 30, abandoned Canadian tourist Jenna Henderson in Brisbane – two-and-a-half weeks into their dream drive down Australia’s east coast from Cairns to Sydney.

They met on Facebook and agreed to split the cost of renting a campervan, with Ms Slater at the wheel because she is used to driving a manual vehicle.

But the pair’s new-found friendship quickly deteriorated as the trip wore on.

Ms Slater accused Ms Henderson of using her as a chauffeur to get her around and claimed she preferred to stay by the pool then go on tours.

But Ms Henderson claimed Ms Slater was not doing her dishes.

The final straw came amid a row over who should pay for damages after the campervan’s roof was damaged scraping against a low pass.

The Brit eventually decided to leave Ms Henderson behind, choosing to do so in Brisbane so she wouldn’t be alone. She claims she also made sure the Canadian traveller had enough money to get by.

Taking to TikTok to explain her decision, Ms Slater said her travel buddy was growing increasingly paranoid that she was about to be ditched and insisted on carrying the keys to the van.

“She’s getting increasingly weird, and more so not the person you thought she was,” Ms Slater said, adding that she felt “backed into a corner”.

She insisted, however, that the whole thing had been blown out of proportion.

“This is just two girls who have had a falling out,” she said.

‘None of this needed to happen the way it happened.”

But Ms Henderson said Ms Slater “liked me for the first week and then started to make remarks and criticise me”.

“She flat out stated ‘I wasn’t the ideal travel partner and she wished she could do it alone or with someone else’,” she said.