Lets Rendezvous Down Under

Excitement is now at fever pitch as Charlotte and I start our journeys to circumnavigate the globe and rendezvous in Sydney. Charlotte will be travelling west via Los Angeles whilst I will be travelling east via Hong Kong. So this marks an exciting start to our adventure already as we depart separately to next meet in Australia!

Thanks to the Virgin staff concessions we are allowed to take 3 pieces of luggage each and luckily for me one additional piece of sports equipment each...free!!! which is a massive bonus!!! So Charlotte has been entrusted with my surf board and I'll be taking my mountain bike. It was quite a sight this morning as we gathered our stuff for our journey: plenty of bags, surf board and bike.

Travelling light!

After an emotional goodbye to the parents we set off for Heathrow in Rob and Hannah's bingo bus, they'd even managed to clean it especially for us. The bingo bus did us proud though as not only was it a nice smooth journey up, all our stuff comfortably fitted in.

At Heathrow, after a little bit of drama checking in, we'd developed a thirst due to the hot weather  so headed straight for the Virgin Atlantic Upper Class lounge for a well deserved beer and moijito (or 2). We also met up with all the other crew on the exchange in the lounge and started to get to know each other. They all seem like a nice crowd.

This will now be our surrogate family for the next 12 months, as Charlotte will training with them for the next 7 weeks, whilst I'll be forced to tag along to all the social gatherings in and around the pubs and clubs of Sydney (oh! if i have to!!!).

After a spot of lunch (washed down with more beer and moijito's) it was time for me to say goodbye to Charlotte as she headed off to board her plane to Los Angleses. Thankfully she managed to get a seat in Upper Class, so that should be a nice flight for her. The next time we see each other it'll be in Sydney.

So now I just had to keep myself occupied for approximately 7 hours before my flight to Hong Kong.Thankfully though, it wouldn't be as hard as you might think, what with a free bar, waiter service, comfortable lounge chairs and a pretty impressive TV wall (yes! a wall) showing the F1 (and a pretty spectacular crash strewn GP2), England v W. Indies cricket and Ireland v Bosnia footy, plus the England game on later.

Impressive TV wall in the lounge

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"Garçon !!! one more glass of your finest champagne please!!!"

Next stop Sydney........................

Wow, doesn't time fly!

It only seems like yesterday that we received the exciting news that Charlotte had been successful in her application for a prestigious position on the Virgin Australia crew for a years secondment living in Sydney (she aced it and came out top of class from 900 people).

From that point forward its been a whirlwind of visa applications, booking flights and accomodation, packing up our house and renting it out, moving in with the parents and making preparations for our long journey Down Under for our exciting year of Aussie life.

It is finally starting to feel real for us now as it is only 11 days (or a week on Saturday) until we bid farewell to the UK shores and head for the sun of Sydney! Well its gonna be winter when we arrive, but I'm hoping for equivilent of a UK summer.....well given the latest forecasts for the UK summer, i'll just settle for 16 degrees, so here's hoping!!

After a final few days of work and doing the rounds of goodbyes to family and friends it will soon be time for us to step on that Virgin plane and head Down Under......