These are the voyages of John Robert Ward and Rachel Elizabeth Harrison. Our mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before...

I hope you'll agree that paraphrasing William Shatner is a great way to start a blog entry. I think next time i'll go for something by David Hasselhoff or maybe George W Bush.

It's been exactly one month since i started this blog and this is only the second entry. I don't feel bad about the lack of updates, largely because i haven't even left the UK yet. This will soon be remedied - our departure date has been confirmed as November 18th 2009.

I have not been idle in the interim. My backpack is now heaving with the paraphernalia required by an international jet-setter, i've stocked up on books and have begged/borrowed/stolen a rather fine collection of Lonely Planets for some of our intended destinations. I have been innoculated against lots of differently coloured fevers. I have been granted an Australian working visa. I have attempted (with little joy) to open a Nationwide cash card account (it's free to withdraw your money overseas if you can get the bloody account open in the first place). I'm almost ready to go!

I'm unlikely to provide you with any further details until my feet are firmly planted on foreign soil, so your next update shall occur one month hence... By that point i shall have been made redundant (fittingly on Friday 13th), kissed goodbye to my youth and will have flown almost halfway around the globe to Kuala Lumpur where i shall spend a week acclimatising to beautiful weather and a life without work (before flying to Melbourne on a mission to find gainful employment!!)

I will personally say goodbye to you all when the time is right. In the meantime do not worry about me, but do envy me. Or maybe even plan to come and see me. Look after yourselves and trust me & Rachel to look after each other!

I'll leave you with a quote which perfectly illustrates why i'm partaking in my open-ended journey...
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime. ~Mark Twain