Apologies for the mundane nature of this blog entry… this is me using my blog in it’s true, personal sense

I booked my flight out to Melbourne last week! Throw away the December date, I go on 29th September now! I’m trying to organise some work arrangements for when I finish my initial bit of travelling, but if anyone has any leads (programming work around Melbourne) gimme a heads-up

The first route I posted last time around is changing a bit. There’s too many stops on it, and I may also be leaving out Uluru until I “do” Western Australia. Doing a bit of financial research into the cost of getting from A to B then I’ll post a more accurate route, with some more descriptive notes about what I’ll be getting up to!

Speaking of finance… I started a Virtual Pot to collect donations from my Swift Mailer project and use as spending money in Oz.

I also bought a new digital camera (cheap and cheerful but deliberately bought since my brother got an older model a couple of years ago and it’s really a nice camera).

I’ll post again in a week or two with a better route

Almost a month has gone by now. I’ve bought three Lonely Planet travel guides:

Australia & New Zealand on a Shoestring
Australia (of course!)
Walking in Australia

I’ve mostly been reading the shoestring guide and have flicked back and forth in the walking guide and have already begun to overwhelm myself with Australian geography, environmental considerations and other useful/interesting facts. I feel compelled to help out with some environmental (conservation) volunteer work on my travels so this is something I’m going to look into quite seriously - I’ll provide some useful links with some overviews of the various groups involved with looking after the struggling environment, soil and endagered wildlife over the coming months.

As of now however, I do have a rough idea of my initial route. The keyword being “rough”. I definitely want to do some walking so I’ve tried to include places that pass near to some of the numerous national parks dotted around Australia.

The initial route is intended to provide me with two months worth of travelling from my initial landing in Melbourne (this is my definite landing spot since I have friends there), right up the east coast, past the Great Barrier Reef, up to the Northern Territory and back down through the Red Center past Uluru (Ayer’s Rock) going via Adelaide before finally hitting Melbourne again to replenish my spending by doing some work!

Here it is:

If I’m honest, half the reason I’m even blogging this is because I’d like to hear from anyone else who knows the places I’m planning on seeing and get some feedback on how I could improve my route. Whatever route I end up with is not set in stone, if I impulsively go off on a tangent then so be it!

1. Land in Melbourne after a painfully long flight, spend a few days getting my head straight with some friends.
2. Leave anything I don’t need to travel with at my friends and say goodbye as I start my 2 month exploration of the east coast! First I cross the Victorian border and into New South Wales while I head over the Kosciuszko National Park - Australia’s largest NP - which has more than its fair share of walking routes and the highest peaks!
3. In a truly scary contrast to some snowy peaks I’ll be heading towards the beach(es) at Wollongong for a chance to try the surf and chill out for a while.
4. Heading just a tad further north up the coast, I hit Sydney where there’s a whole load of things to see and do so I’ll spend a week or so here I guess.
5. Moving into Sydney’s Blue Mountain backdrop I’m off to another National Park for some walking in a Eucalyptus Haze! Bliss!
6. Time to plonk-out on wine. Hunter Vallley is a well-known wine making region. Now I’m no alcholic but I’m looking forward to this!
7. Taking quite a stride and leaving NSW behing I enter Queensland, the first stop being the infamous Byron Bay for more beach-loving relaxation and some hard partying! (You know me ;))
8. Just a stone’s throw away I hit Brisbane.
9. Another big trek along the coastline of the Great Barrier Reef and up to the Whitsunday Islands. Here I hope to do some island hopping and a bit of scuba diving. My dad will be so jealous!
10. Slightly further north to Cairns. I’ll be honest, I can’t remember what’s at Cairns but I’ve been told to go
11. Out of Queensland and into the Northern Territory to see Katherine.
12. Up to the tip of the Northern Territory to see Darwin — I’ve been told that this is a must!
13. Here’s where I’m undecided whether to throw some money into my travels. There’s a train called the Ghan which runs from Adelaide to Darwin and vice-versa. It costs A$690 in total but is said to be quite an experience. Either way, somehow I’m heading into the Red Centre toward Uluru (Ayer’s Rock). But first, I stop at Alice Springs.
14. Everyone knows about Uluru - the big rock - I have to see it!
15. Across the border into South Australia for… ermm… you guessed it, more wine drinking! Barossa/Clare is a big wine making region in South Australia.
16. Adelaide. Crazy thing is, I may have already been here if I do pay to have the experience of the Ghan since it stops at Adelaide but I’ll just have backtracked to the wine making region.
17. Portland - Just passing through mainly. It’s Victoria’s oldest town but I haven’t got much information on it. I figured it was worth a look anyway.
18. Start working. I need to save to get some money to travel on the West Coast.

I suppose a good place to start my blog would be with an introduction to myself and an explanation of why I’ve even started the blog in the first place? Ok then, here goes.

I’m Chris Corbyn, a 23 year old PHP Developer from Manchester in the UK. I finished studying at the University of Durham in 2004 and went into work as a Developer about a year later. One thing I do regret is that I walked straight out of University and into a job which paid the rent. I mean, some people take a bit of time off, have a holiday or go and see the world. Luckily, I do believe that although I’ll make a big sacrifice to do it (quit my job) I should still jump at the opportunity to do a bit of travelling.

Ok, ok so who am I kidding? It’s not like I had any money when I left uni anyway…. but it was a nice thought. Lucky for me I can gather enough to do this now.

Who made a new years resolution? I did… pretty simple really. Don’t waste any time and just get out of life what I can. That can’t be too much effort can it? Granted, I did make the pledge between Christmas and New Year, not on New Year itself.

I’d done all the reading around what you need to spend time travelling in Australia in the past so I had a pretty good idea but all the same I jumped onto http://www.immi.gov.au/ for an up-to-date read of all the documents. On 28th December 2006 I completed the Working Holiday Maker Visa online, which cost me $185 AUD (about £75 GBP) and got approved within a matter of hours. I couldn’t believe the short amount of time it took to be approved but it certainly put me in a good mood for the new year.

As of now, all I can tell you is that I need to start saving right now and all the way through to December, and that I will be visiting both the East and the West coast of Australia. I’ll be working in Australia to supplement my travelling costs of course.

I have 11 months to plan my time out there and get myself prepared for it all. It also just so happens that I live with an Aussie who’s visiting the UK after a little bit of travelling herself so I’ll be getting some travel tips off her and some notes on what to see and what not to see in Australia. I’d love some ideas from anybody who’s reading this too (is anybody reading this? :P) I can’t wait!

Keep checking back to see what I’m up to guys…