So if you’ve just happened to stumble across my blog and want to read about our travels, I’ll give you an insight into us. Even though the general audience to this blog will most likely be our friends and family- mainly moms. 🙂

Well my name is Claire, I am a 26 year old Brit from Southampton in the UK who loves to travel after two previous stints in America doing Camp America, as well as holidays in Europe. I am joined by my boyfriend of over 2 and a half years, Adam who is 23 and also from Southampton. I will most likely be the main blogger on here, trying to keep my blog updated on all our adventures, and Adam will just pop up in the photos and be my partner in crime for all the activities. I will also be attempting to steal Adams photos too so we can have a big old collection going on here.

A bit of background info on how we ended up coming to Oz, initially I was quite surprised when we made the decision to come to Australia, which began as small talk in a country pub in the new forest over a summer cider, and at first I thought Adam was joking. But it turned out he always wanted to come out to Oz, and it was next on my list along with Europe, so Australia won as the weather is more likely to be nicer. So that was it, the saving commenced.

But any ways this blog will document our adventures in Oz and wherever we end up, it will include lots of photos, so that one day when were old and boring we can look at it and be reminded that we used to be fun. If we eventually grow up one day. hehe. So be prepared to be jealous, but look at your own risk as it will most likely contain photos of lush beaches, pretty sunsets and crazy animals along the way. As I don’t want to spam Facebook with them, so that I’m not unfriended by my friends. And also enjoy reading my long essays.

Much love.

Claire & Adam

Where to begin…well here we are sat on a couch in Wattle Grove in Perth, one month into our adventures, just about settled into Aussie life. And loving every moment.

Its mad to think that were over here on the other side of the world, after about a year of hardcore saving. (Which my friends and family probably never thought possible, but turning into a bit of a peasant enabled us to be here with just about enough money which could of set us up a small deposit on a flat back home. But we chose the sensible route to travel instead.)

We did quite a bit of prep to get here, with the process being spread over more than a year, collecting travelling essentials such as backpacks, towels and clothing amongst others things. As well as getting increasingly excited as it drew closer. But boy did it come around fast, and for a while it didn’t seem real, not the week before, at the airport or even when we’d arrived.

Our adventure began on the 15th September, after a busy weekend of family and friend goodbyes as well as my birthday and a wedding. We were lucky enough to be given a surprise party by my bestie, where both mine and Adams friends and families came along all decked out in Aussie attire, which we knew absolutely nothing about. It was an amazing send of, hopefully photos to follow. (Big thankyou hugs & kisses to Lucy.)

The lead up to the 15th was a bit emoshe, saying goodbye to family and friends who your used to seeing whenever you want to but wont be able to for a year, is a bit hard and I kind of went into a bit of denial. But I managed to hold it together until we got to the airport with the parents. We drove up to the airport in two separate cars, me with my parents and Adam with his.

After an overnight stay in Travelodge it was time to taxi it to Heathrow, we dropped our massive heavy backpacks off, collected our tickets and had a last breakfast in England. We then said the difficult goodbyes, and some tears were had, mainly by me. Then with one last wave we went through security and did some duty free shopping.

Time seemed to fly by and before we knew it, it was time to board the plane to singapore and sit for a very long 13 hours. We spent the time watching movies, playing battleships (mainly winning on my behalf) as well as eating quite a few times. We then got off in Singapore, which had a nice airport not that we got to see much of it, apart from the luxury stores like Gucci and Channel, before boarding our second flight to Perth.

The second flight went by a lot quicker despite us both being shattered, being only 4 hours which was luxury after the 13 previous. It seemed like we had loads of meals though while we were on there, including noodles for breakfast. But then we finally arrived in Perth!!

We went through security, which took a while as it was pretty busy, but it worked out ok as our luggage had just arrived by the time we were through. Then we got a local bus to the city, as typically the quicker shuttle bus was on a two hour break, but it made it more interesting as we had to try navigate as to where we were and where we would end up. We arrived in the city and then like a mile long walk followed to get to the hostel using my amazing map skills, I also did my deed of the day by showing an Asian girl to where she needed to get to as she had no idea.

After a very long day we finally arrived at the hostel, proper exhausted from carrying the backpacks, to very swiftly check in, have a dinner of crisps and cake in bed and then crash out.

The next morning we got up and had our orientation meeting to give us some info on work and phones, and to set up a bank account and tax number. We also got to check the hostel out a bit more, which turnt out not to be as bad as we thought it would be. It was actually quite smart, it was in an old army barracks so had a really nice bar area in a high ceiling room, and was very friendly. Although I still went around on edge as to whether there were spiders lurking around all corners, flushing the loo every time and checking in the bed before we got in.  I’ve now eased off on this as I have yet to see any scary spiders, snakes on the other hand (more to come on that).

We had a couple of days at the hostel, which was in Northbridge in the city, so did a bit of exploring and some shopping. Northbridge is quite a funky area though, with some really cute and quirky bars. Although we were struggling a bit with jet lag, and we would come over really tired around midday which would be 5am back home.

We then got picked up by my Auntie/cousin Trish, who very kindly let us stay with her and the family in Wattle grove, which is where were at now.