Here goes, post no.1...
So, I visited Western Australia when I was 14 years old. I had pretty much the best experience of my life at the time and actually found it pretty emotional to leave. As I sat on that Qantas flight home, I vowed to return to Perth; and see the rest of Australia.
Since that day, my life has changed a lot; I finished secondary school, went on to further education, got my first full time job at 17 years old, and have been employed ever since, not to mention growing hairs in all sorts of different places! I carried on with education nearly the entire time attending evening school and more recently; studied for a degree with the Open University. All this has allowed me a few things with conflicting interest. The money I was earning allowed me to travel a little and take up my favourite past-time of snowboarding. Adversly, annual leave and educational commitments meant I could only get away for as much as 2 weeks in one go - not really enough to get back out to Oz and see some more. So the dream had faded a little.
Last year, after meeting a bunch of cool people snowboarding, I organised a trip for 14 of us to visit California - Lake Tahoe. After waiting an agonising 7 months for the holiday to roll around, we left for Cali and had an amazing time. It had been the first real reminder for me of what the rest of the world had to offer and once again I had an emotional departure.
So, I visited Western Australia when I was 14 years old. I had pretty much the best experience of my life at the time and actually found it pretty emotional to leave. As I sat on that Qantas flight home, I vowed to return to Perth; and see the rest of Australia.
Since that day, my life has changed a lot; I finished secondary school, went on to further education, got my first full time job at 17 years old, and have been employed ever since, not to mention growing hairs in all sorts of different places! I carried on with education nearly the entire time attending evening school and more recently; studied for a degree with the Open University. All this has allowed me a few things with conflicting interest. The money I was earning allowed me to travel a little and take up my favourite past-time of snowboarding. Adversly, annual leave and educational commitments meant I could only get away for as much as 2 weeks in one go - not really enough to get back out to Oz and see some more. So the dream had faded a little.
Last year, after meeting a bunch of cool people snowboarding, I organised a trip for 14 of us to visit California - Lake Tahoe. After waiting an agonising 7 months for the holiday to roll around, we left for Cali and had an amazing time. It had been the first real reminder for me of what the rest of the world had to offer and once again I had an emotional departure.
Thinking on that Virgin Atlantic flight home, I said to myself that I'd make an effort to get away from the UK to work in Australia and New Zealand; 3 months each for 6 months. Though on meeting Nick, 2 weeks later (he'd been away to Cali with the group), he put a new idea in my head of joining him in a 1yr round the world trip including the work that I wanted to experience. I chewed it over for a few weeks before making a decision but eventually decided that I COULD leave my job and my world would NOT come to an end!
In May we purchased our RTW flight tickets, departure date 14th October hitting : Frankfurt, Vienna, Kathmandu, Bankgkok, Singapore, Perth, Auckland, Rarratonga, LA and NYC - all this with a whole bunch of overland travel too. Ever since then I've been getting gear bought and sorting out working visa's and travel insurance etc.
Since May we've also planned a 3 week trek around the Nepalese Himalayas, and loosly planned to snowboard New Zealand for 4-6 weeks next July. I'm also gunning to make enough money in Oz that can support my extended stay in North America... watch this space!
Now it's a little under 3 months till departure, it's just starting to sink in that it's all really happening. The hard work, the saving and tedious e-baying of anything I find that can make me some cash, is nearly at fruition.
