This is a disclaimer even before I begin. I have been educated in Yorkshire for school, college, and university, so my grammar and punctuation may not always be what one may expect, but I still hope you enjoy it what I write all the same.

Well 8 days till I set off to all these wonderful places that I never thought I would ever see. I thought I would write something on this now, as It makes sense knowing how to work this blog in the UK. Because when I'm abroad I presume I will be paying for internet time, and I would rather not be losing valuable money in trying to play a game of trial and error with this bloody thing.

Before I start talking about looking forward to all the wonderful places I have in mind that I will visit, I want to say what a rubbish picture I have to display regarding 'home'..'yorkshire' the place that made me who I am, and the place I hold dearest in my heart. TELEPHONE BOXES? They could have had options of York minster, Headingley stadium, Yorkshire studios, Leeds Bradford Airport, the seaside, Leeds railway station, the yorkshire dales or Meadowhall. Even the M1 motorway would have been better than some of the options I had the choice of choosing. Right rant over, I will now carry on my first blog with the picture of not just one, but four fantastic red exuberant telephone boxes next to my wonderfully written essay.

With regards to my preparation of leaving home for 8 months, everything is practically done now, apart from actually packing my bag. I've got one or two things to sort when I arrive in Brisbane on the friday morning, like looking for a job and sorting a bank account out. Some say "just sort one online" but I'd prefer to go in branch and sort one out and see if I like what I hear. That way I can also see if the women are as nice as the ones employed by HSBC at home. I also need to buy a phone as soon as I arrive there as well. I've bought some ear muffs already for the hostel, just incase I can't sleep due to the noise, but as I am use to drunken revellers partying/raving into the early hours of the morning, I don't think I'll be too bothered (as I'll probably be joining them....if they're paying) and I sleep through anything anyway. I've read reviews from some hostels and some people complain alot regarding the noise levels, but having researched library accomdation throughout Australia to no avail, it looks like I'm just going to have to put up with some noisey hostels. Already booked the hostel for 2 week in Brisbane, so if I do not like the city or the hostel, I can always move on.

I also bought some travel towels, sunglasses, factor 50 suncream, a safety lock combination thingy ding for my bag, and also a world wide travel adaptor to charge my shaver/electric toothbrush up etc etc. I bought it all from Boots one sunday morning as it boosted the points on my mums Boots card. When she looks at how many points is on her card due to my spending spree, she can remember what a kind son I really am.........hmm, ha.

I'm looking forward to the flights as furthest I've been to before is Lanzarote. Going to try and pick fault with something on the flight so I can try and swindle myself into business class for free of charge (JOKEEEE). I hope there are nice flight attandents when I'm in the air, and not something similar to the campest man alive on a flight I went on the other week. He made Graham Norton look straight. I've had to put up with jokes all week about not getting to Australia as the Quantas flights seem to not be the most reliable mode of transport at the moment. Not to worry though as I tell people, because I have my 25 and 50 metre swimming badges proudly sitting in my cupboard.

As you can probably tell by what has been written, I have really struggled what to write, as I didn't really want to discuss things on what I hope to achieve out there and what I hope to have learnt, as what will be will be, and whatever does happen, it should be one excellent experience and a fantastic chapter in my life, and I will just take one day at a time. No point in writing all soppy and over emotional stuff on here, in my opinion of course. I'm sure when I've visited other places across the world, I will be into my stride and fluently writing away and sharing my experiences to all you jealous envious folk back home. I hope that not just people who know me, but people who don't will follow my blog and enjoy what they read, and hopefully I will have some followers. That may encourage me to improve the quality of content. I do appreciate however that some may not enjoy my writing style, as it's probably not as serious as how travellers may write, but I do hope it is just as informative and will help future travellers prepare for their travels and give people the heads up on where is really good and where is not so good. From my experiences of reading travel blogs, I like them to be informative, witty and fairly funny, and an easy read seems vital, as there's no point in losing the reader half way through so this blogs post is just an heads up really of what is to come and I hope I have a few followers who enjoy reading what I'm getting up to. Drop me a messege when you want if you want me to expand further detail of places I've visited for hints/tips/advice etc.

I also forgot to mention, I have wrote this blog for friends/family, and other people who are interested in travelling to various places across the globe, but it also for me to look back at with years to come and remember all the fantastic moments I have had whilst travelling to what will hopefully be some amazing places. I was just going to write a few sentances in a notepad, but I will only end up losing all what I have wrote, so this way I can keep a check on everything. On one final note.... please STA, don't lose this webpage, as I'm relying on you to keep all this safe as I want to keep looking back at this for years to come, thankyou.

My next blog will no doubt be about Brisbane and how I either enjoyed it, or didn't quite take to it. Time will tell.

Rich