My First Post...

Hello Everyone, (not that anyone'll be looking now, I've just started right at the begining)

This is my first post on what I hope to be a great blog charting my journey to Australia and beyond. I've decided to start writing it now so that people I meet on websites like Gapyear.com (great site) and travel mate's I meet will be able to see what's happened from the begining.

As I've put in the 'About me' bit. I've decided to do a bit of travelling for a few reasons really:

At the moment I'm working for a company in Warrington, a town just out of Leigh (twinned with Angers in France and Lake County Illinois apparently...), and have worked my bones off for the past 6 years. I'm 24 now, have worked really hard since I was 18, and to be fair I don't really have a great deal to show for it (I'm shit with money) and also don't have the greatest of memories for it either (missing Christmases with family etc.)

Because of this, I decided thats rather than spend my money on useless shit like DVD's, Real Ale and impressing women (only interested in one-night-stands), I'd spend it on travelling instead.

Now travelling seems like a crazy term to use really, you travel to your local shop for a packet of crisps or a pint of milk, but travelling across the world, hopefully will give me a little more satisfaction. It's been surprisingly cheap too, For 300 of her majesty's english pounds I've managed to book flight via an airline called AirAsia, and those will take me from London Stansted Airport to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, then after a night's stopover there (and photo op at the 'towers') a connecting flight to Melbourne, Australia. From there I've booked another flight to get me to Sydney.

I've booked myself onto a week with a backpackers orientation firm called OzIntro, they seem to do a good deal, saving me loads of effort and sorting out all the boring stuff. Basically they've sorted me out a Visa to work/stay there for 12 months, my tax number so I can work there without being emergency taxed, a Medicare card which gives me free point of service healthcare, and a mobile phone simcard on Vodaphone over there.

As well as that, they're taking me and the rest of the group booked on it for excursions all week, and also booked us into a hostel for our first week too. That takes a huge enormous chunk out of arranging my 'what to do' after I've landed.

I've got 2 people I want to go and visit while I'm out there.

One is a friend who I met via LeighLife.com (a local community website) called Lynn, she lives in Wollongong, and we've spent the last few months attempting to talk over webcam/msn/voice calling with some difficulty! She's an ex-Leyther (the term for people from Leigh) and I'm sure will make an excellent host when I come over. She's been a godsend to me already, talking me through likely jobs I could get and has helped me seperate reality from fantasy in my mind about what to do out there!!!

My other friend I'm hoping to see is an ex colleague of mine called Katie, she's a similar age to me and we met when she came over to work in the UK. She's an australian, and lives out towards Brisbane, which apparently is a VERY popular spot with backpackers. Katie brightened my life up when we worked together, and I can't wait to see her again, I'm sure I'll be infected her free spirited nature and highly contagious smile, if history is anything to go by...

Anyway, thats a brief bit of my plans, I'm hoping to post up here pretty regularly so people can see how I'm doing, what I'm up to, and what thoughts I'm having (on the occasions that I do actually have them...)

Sithee later,

Lee

xx