The Road Goes Ever On And On . . .

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Thought I should join up on here before I actually leave the country and start my travels.

For those that don't know me, i'm 34, have worked in IT for the better part of 15 years and have decided to hang it all up and go travelling for a while. This has been, largely, precipitated by a final realisation that I hate my job and also by wanting to see a little more of the world.

The Plan

So far, the plan is to fly from the UK to Sydney, Australia, staying in a hostel in the Rocks area for a few weeks, before finding somewhere a little more permanant on the North Shore. This will essentially be a base for working from in Sydney. At some point, i'll probably be travelling across to Perth to see the West coast and to visit some family in the area.

Later on in the year (probably in December), the plan is to head to New Zealand for 4-6 weeks, travelling round both the north and south islands, catching up with some friends (and their new addition) in Wellington, hopefully meeting up with some familiar faces in Christchurch and generally getting some good pictures of the place.

After New Zealand it'll be back to Australia for another couple of months, where i'll be doing a night class in Japanese (this may start before the NZ trip), in anticipation of heading there later on in the year. During this period in Oz I intend to take a little road trip from Sydney to Cairns, dive the Great Barrier Reef and see some of the East coast of Oz.

Around late March, the idea is to head back to Hong Kong for a week or so, for the 2008 Hong Kong 7's tournament and to catch up with some familiar faces there too.

Next will be the trip to Japan, for around a month - beyond actually going there, i've not worked out any more specific details.

Beyond that it gets a little sketchy, I may go back to China again, since it is a place I want to visit again, maybe go to Laos or Vietnam, perhaps even to India.

The Preparation

It's getting a little more serious. I've started moving things into storage today in anticiaption of leaving in the next few weeks. It's a little nerve wracking, to say the least.

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