Well, this is it. My travel blog! And first I’d like to say wahooooo! I finally got a job! Now with just three weeks left in the UK I can finally relax and look forwards to setting off.

I’ll try not to waffle too much in this blog and bore everyone….but I do have a habit of going on a bit when writing. However I do want to waffle just little bit now and explain how many plans evolved. That derserves a title:

 The story of my travel plans

I never really had the travel bug when I graduated. Partly due to a disastrous 8 months spent in Switzerland which put me off travel (and skiing*) altogether, and partly because I had a career to get stuck in to. However, about 2 years after landing my job at tommies I started to seriously dream of taking a year out and working abroad.

My final decision to do this trip rests on three key moments:

• I abandoned my permanent contract at tommies and took up a temporary contract to do specialised research within the department – which led to me thinking: ‘what shall I do at the end of my contract?’
• I took a trip to Cambodia with my friend Lisa and discovered the joy of freedom and exploring
• I signed up to a race weekend with OnDeck during Cowes week where I first heard about some transatlantic crossing thing they did…..

When I first heard about the transatlantic crossing it sounded utterly horrible – no sleep and you only wash once every four days?! Didn’t know why anyone would want to do it. My idea of sailing is to sit drinking pimms whilst the autohelm does all the work. But I couldn’t stop thinking about what it would be like and whether I could handle it…and then I read the daily blog during last year’s crossing and that was it, I had to do it! I decided to combine it with going to New Zealand and Australia, where I’d long wished to visit seeing as everyone else I know seems to have. Going on recomendations that New Zealand is pretty, yet has the atmosphere of a retirement village, I decided to settle in Sydney to work for a year prefering the excitment of city life. Throw into this my friend Paul moving to California, who I decided to visit along the way, and viola (isn’t that an instrument?) a plan had formed!

My friends and my trip

One thing which has delighted me has been the keeness of several of my friends and family to take advantage of my plans and join me at various stages. Lisa and Jonny are coming to visit me in Barbados which is the best thing ever (!), Paul and Victoria are putting up with me in California (and there was some debating amongst Mike and Catherine whether to join us out there….go on you know you want to!), Dan is treking round New Zealand with me despite already having too much on his plate, I’m hoping to meet Renee somewhere in NZ when she goes home for xmas, and my parents are going the other way around the world and plan to meet me in Sydney. Hopefully I’ll see Miranda in NZ too, and Dave has usefully placed himself in Sydney a few months ahead of me so he can sort out my social life, accomodation and buy me a yacht before I arrive. So I’d just like to say a big thankyou to everyone – your presence will make the trip 100 times more fun!

 Enough! I’ve gone on lots (I warned you…..)

Next post: in Portugal!

x

* I got over the skiing issue later!

p.s. I know I can’t spell and the spellchecker doesn’t work on this thing!