Once upon a time...

And so the story finally begins...

After waving goodbye to our parents at Sydney airport, Craig and I officially began our journey. My planned title for this post was 'The flight from hell', but it turned out luck was on our side. With the plane half empty, we managed to get two seats each for the first leg, making our economy flight seem oh-so business. After lying back watching movies like Juno, Atonement and Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (um, for the record, that was Craig), and eating some sort of chicken meal that wasn't half bad, we landed in Hong Kong for our 90-minute stopover.

For the 13-hour leg to London, we were back in our pre-assigned cattle-class seats. Surprisingly, we slept for the majority of this leg, and before we knew it, our 24-hour journey was over. Now it was time for the next journey 'from hell', through English Immigration...

'Allow at least two hours to get through' read all the forums, while Craig reminisced of the three-hour line-up he endured when he was in the UK for a cricket tour back in 2001. We had psyched ourselves up, we were mentally prepared for both the line-up and grilling we would receive from the Immigration officer (we had documents galore), and there may have even been Eye of the Tiger playing in the background. This is how it all went down:

No line, walked straight up to the desk and the conversation went exactly like this...
'What are you here for?'
'A working holiday.'
'How long do you intend to stay for?'
'Two years.'
'Do you know how long you are allowed to work for?'
'Twelve months.'
'Where are you staying?'
'With a friend.'

And that was it! Our passports were stamped and away we went, no questions about our travel plans or proof of funds... I'd like to take this opportunity to say to the butch bitch at the Flight Centre at the Edgecliff Centre, the one who rudely told me there is no way I could get in without a return ticket so I'd just have to buy a return and forfeit it (despite everything I had read to the contrary), 'SUCK ON THAT!'

Our bags eventually made there way around the carousel, and we lugged our two backpacks and a suitcase onto the London Tube.

To be continued...

About us and this blog

As you may have guessed from the extremely witty and pun-filled title, this post is about 'us and this blog'.

So let’s cut to the chase:

We (Lisa and Craig – that ridiculously good-looking pair on the right) met way back in 1998 at the McDonald’s in Parkes – Craig was eating a McChicken (no shock there) and Lisa was a skinny, brace-face 14 year old who had just started at Parkes High School. Needless to say, it was not love at first sight.

Fast forward two years later (April 21, 2000), to a moment where Craig did not have McChicken lettuce falling out of his mouth and Lisa had a metal-free mouth – the perfect conditions for a drunken pash.

Two months later, Craig finally whispered those magical words, ‘Are you going to go out with me or what?' And it was official.

Since that day, despite our very un-romantic beginnings, over seven years have passed. In that time we have gotten our drivers licences, watched Coyote Ugly at the movies twice and at least once on DVD, lapped the Parkes main street 11,869 times*, eaten KFC in Cooke Park 822 times*, completed the HSC, moved to Sydney, eaten meals that consisted of Continental packet pasta and an artificial mashed-potato powder called Deb, seen Footloose on stage, discovered the joys of international cuisines other than Chinese (Thai, Mexican, Indian, Vietnamese... who knew?), exchanged countless gifts, been on holidays to Terrigal, Melbourne and the Gold Coast, played scrabble, been to a U2 concert, bought our dog Snoop, travelled to Vietnam for a month, seen Silverchair play at the Enmore, campaigned to become regulars at Sapori restaurant, watched seasons one and two of The OC (season three was crap), whinged about our feral upstairs neighbours 236,526 times*, become obsessed with Entourage and expanded our cooking skills to include real potatoes.

Now, as exciting as lapping the Parkes main street is, it’s time for our biggest adventure yet – travelling the world (well, parts of it) for two years.

The current plan** goes a little something like this:
April-September 2008 – Live with some randoms in Lymington, England while Craig plays and coaches cricket and Lisa follows her life calling of being a lady of leisure (or finds a part-time job to supplement our travel funds)
October 2008-March 2009 – Skip the European weather and backpack around South America
April 2009-March 2010 – Live and work in London and travel Europe at any available opportunity
March 2010 until our money runs out – Backpack around Europe

While we will no doubt get sick of this blog after about three days and desert it, we are actually planning on updating it semi-regularly with stories, news, photos and random tidbits from our journey. And we promise we will try and keep the long-winded, cliched travel anecdotes to a minimum.


* May be a slight exaggeration
** Subject to change at any given moment