The Start

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You will have to bear with me, I’ve never written a blog, a twitter or anything else like that. So let me start by telling people who don’t know me who I am… I am Alex, used to work in a bank, sometimes a little clumsy, sometimes a bit silly but for the most I am just a bloke who got a bit bored and decided to travel. So now you know me.

I made the decision to travel at the beginning of January 2010, and wanting to make sure I can’t pull out I had the flights booked by the middle of January, to leave as soon as I thought was sensibly possible…. In 4 months time. After what seemed like a long time it was time to say goodbye. So there I was late on a Bank holiday Monday evening at heathrow, flight CX--- 10 mins to boarding. After a quick walk around I checked again… flight CX---- delayed. 20 minutes later, it still said delayed. “I mustn’t worry” I told myself, but of course I did. And it didn’t get any better when I saw on one of the TVs at the airport that the ash cloud that had been haunting Europe for weeks had reappeared. Eventually we did get called to the gate, and after a hefty 2 hour wait (we now knew this was due to late arrival), it was time to go. The moment we were going down the runway at full throttle and starting to take off will probably stay with me for a long time.

After a pretty uneventful flight, we approached the first stop; Hong Kong. The approach was beautiful, the rolling hills and little islands quickly made me vow to come back and have a proper look. The terminal itself was huge, and I remember looking at where I needed to go, then realising I need to get a train. The terminal seemed endless… as far as the eye could see. Anyway eventually it was time to move on, so after another 9 hour flight I was in Brisbane. Time to collect bags and go through the dreaded Australian customs. After not too many questions I was allowed through, and got on board the train I needed for the domestic terminal, where I had a long wait with very little to do. Finally it was time to board my last flight. This time only 1 hour and a half.

So after what seemed like forever, the sun was setting as I finally arrived at Proserpine airport. Getting out of the air conditioned plane and stepping onto the tarmac, I felt hot and humid. I knew it had to be well over 20 degrees yet it was close to 7pm. There was no terminal building per-se to go to, and we were surrounded by what almost looked like jungle. There was no baggage carrousel either… they just parked the cart next to a little waiting area and we got them out our selves. After a short wait, my lift was here. Sheila and Henry, good friends from home were picking my up in their green VW Beetle. Cool.

I was going to be staying with Sheila and Henry for the first week, which I have to say I was very happy about… for starters I hadn’t seen them since they started travelling 2 years ago, but also because it was a lot less intimidating being in such a new place with people I trusted. In the first week with their help I got a bank account set up, health insurance sorted out, but also got to explore the area. As well as seeing the party town and backpackers paradise airlie beach, we went to Hideaway bay, I nice beach a bit out of the way, went to the small town of Proserpine and lots of other general exploring. The house in which I was staying was owned by Nikki and John who were god fun, as was their great dane Mia, which chased off the big lizards (1.5m+) when they came into the garden.

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