I believe in coincidences and I actually LOVE stories like that. I find them fascinating.

My boss went to Europe recently with his wife. His wife met somebody there and they hit it off quickly. Start talking and find out they have a friend here in common (the best friend of the woman they met). So, wife posts picture to Facebook and the common friend here posts "Hey! How are you in a picture with my best friend?!?!"

Yes they can but it's complicated.

This is a long but easily understood article about coincidences.
[theatlantic.com]

I have had so many instances of this sort of thing and I don't think god had a thing to do with it. Like minds think alike.

I have no explanation only a similar story. I was hiking in the middle of winter in the middle of nowhere in Maine. It seemed no other fools except myself had chosen to hike up the north side of this mountain.I am from Kentucky and this was long after I went to high school. I started to hear a conversation and the mention of the high school basketball coach's name.I walked up to 2 guy sitting on a ledge that I hadnt seen in about 20 years.

Happy accident, yippee. Unhappy accident, sad face.

Some people have a lot of good things happen and some people can never get a break. Most people have both.

It's an accidental universe, some of it can be predicted and controlled and some cannot. Reason is helpful to determine which.

its wierd, but just random odds. Perhaps since you share so much in common, so too do you share travel destination intrests.

When I lived in NYC it was a great rarity to run into anyone from you residence area (your block) elsewhere in the city, with a population of millions, BUT it did happen rarely. Sometimes just randomly, but more often over shared intrests, be that films, theatre or what have you.

Something about percentages and rolling dice we did it in school and I can't remember what it was called

So, how many people did you met in Cairns who were NOT from England? Every person, except one person, right?

Same for your time in Brisbane. Virtually everyone was not someone from England, and the one exception was someone doing what you were doing, so she went to the same place.