First post - How we got here

Hello!

This is my first time entering into the world of blogging (the less said about the vlog I started the better!). I'm not sure exactly what I expect to 'achieve', I suppose to be able to keep in touch and update those that care about our travels and adventures.
Having read a few of these over the last 3-6 months, I found some very helpful in terms of information and piece of mind. To hear recommendations and experiences from other people first hand has indeed been useful.

That being said, I'm not sure that it is required, but it makes everything clearer if I say... The thoughts and experiences I write about, are my own views, not that of any employer, or potentially even Chloe.

Hopefully someone reading this finds it useful or informative or something. However the real reason I have decided to start this blog is to update family, friends, former collegues and team mates (and strangers) on our Australian Adventure. It all started....well, I'm not exactly sure when. We have always spoken about travelling and to Australia and New Zealand in particular. Following a visit to the London O2 (to see Westlife, Chloe's choice honest!), we had a discussion about travelling or at least considering looking at opportunities outside of Hampshire, possibly the UK. However it wasn't for a few weeks, possibly months until any action was taken.

Chloe arrived home from another testing time at work to be greeted by me saying 'lets move to Australia!' After initial surprise and slight bewilderment, we discussed the idea.
Having researched online, we felt the next thing to do was to attend a conference / fair on moving aboard and to Australia. This proved informative and was the basis of our first steps to working out what to do visa wise and how to progress. Following a drawn out period we decided that the 4year visa we had initially thought would suit us, was not our best option because it came with a number of restrictions. Having never been to Australia, getting there and being restricted to a state or employer (while this will suit some) was not quite what we wanted. In the end (a number of months later) we made the decision to apply for a working holiday visa. This would give us the opportunity to travel around Australia and really explore the country, while also being able to visit and meet some of the people we have emailed in regards to work opportunities around the country.

That is the start to our adventure, the 'goodbyes' ' see you soons' are happening on a rollling basis now with resignations accepted and house about to be let, we are walking along our 'pathway' to the land down under.