The 28th of February I have a plane ticket booked to take me from Brisbane to Bali, Indonesia. I have been spending a while, contemplating about starting up a travel blog on a website somewhere. Something I could use as my diary as I travel, so I am able to log into any computer in the world to type out my thoughts and feelings. It only struck me today that D.A. has a journal feature, it stares me in the face everyday when I come onto the site to check out whats new.

I believe I will be using this feature as much as possible in the coming few months as I make my way around areas of the world. It is more for myself, to create a portrayal of the events to come that will not disappear with time, as the aging memory seems to forget a lot. It's not often a man can remember all the compliments he has been given over a life time, the good things that have happened to him, the odd fling or romance. The girl that smiled at you as you walked down the street 6 years ago that made that worthless week worthwhile. See the mind, it is like skin in that sense. You can not look at your skin and see the soft touch of a lover the night before, their imprints are only left for seconds. Yet we can see where we feel out of a tree when we where 8, where the dog bit us at the park. The mind is like that because it is more often then not the bad events that happen to us in life are the most prominent in shaping who we are and how we react to the world around us for better or worse. It is quite a sad thing really.

I don't want to forget anything that happens to me, in reality though I can't remember what I did last Monday. This is why a journal is useful, its for those days when you think... am I the same person I was 12 months ago? Why am I unhappy now, have I ever really been happy, was I really in-love with her? It is a way to prove to yourself that you have either changed, or haven't changed. I would imagine that if I had kept a journal from when I was young and now was to go back and read it. It would be the feeling of meeting an old friend again. One of those friends you haven't even seen, heard or thought about for 5 years yet you can go for lunch and it is like you parted just yesterday. Not only in the sense that they can remind of things past. They can also rekindle lost feelings inside of you. I would like to imagine a journal can achieve that.

Now for traveling. I have been meaning to go traveling for two years now. Before two years ago, I am not completely sure if it had even crossed my mind. I had talked about it, never did I seriously think about it. It wasn't until I meet my first backpacker. Theo Turner. A young British fellow breed and raised in a sleepy farming town called Dorset. I meet him in march 2009 when I was 18. The upbringing I had in my home town of Toowoomba almost sheltered me to the fact that there is an entire world out there. So meeting Theo a true to life backpacker shocked me to the core. I had been working full time since I was 14 as an apprentice carpenter and here was a man, 2 years older them me traveling where ever he pleased, working hard at hardly working really. He was a charmer and extremely outgoing, our eyes locked across a crowded room... I was making an entrance walking on my hands from the kitchen to the living room. We instantly fell in-brolove! I'm completely straight by the way, just getting the idea across that we both admired each others personalities from the moment we met.

I will probably talk more about him one day, when I end up visiting him later this year. So to make a long story not so long, he inspired me to travel with his carefree attitude and vibrant positive outlook on life. Many a day he would wake me up with a goon bag(4 liter sack of wine) or a fat-fat joint. Fine, fine memories. After meeting Theo, I quit my job and moved from Toowoomba to Brisbane the idea was to find a job, make more money and travel. I already had quite adequate founds in my bank account so after a couple weeks living with a some great room mates, I decided to tag along with Theo through New-south Whales and Victoria before he left back home to England. That took a couple months, my bank account still looked good so I took another 8 months off. That's right I hardly worked for 10 months .

I finally started to work again In February 2010. At that time my mother also let me know that the lease on a unit at the coast she owned was running out and asked me to move in to renovate it. It is this beautiful beach front place, 3rd story. You can stand on the balcony and look out to the endless sea, there is a little island that looks like a whale a few kilometers offshore. I learned to surf quite well but didn't really meet to many new friends, it has been a bit lonely here the past year. Although between having hardly any friends, spending my time surfing, free rent, and six months on and off as a well paying, self employed carpenter. I managed to save up enough funds to start my around the word extravaganza. Yes if you figure that out, I have worked  6 months in the past two years :S and hopefully am making it to 3 years on 6 months work. The secrete is spending hardly anything on hardly anything. The truth is, you don't really need all that shit you have in your house, all those new clothes, that almost new car to be content, I have a computer, the internet and my surfboard. IT IS FUCKING AWESOME!!! Currently I haven't worked since before Christmas, so this year is going well, I've really been enjoying doing not much at all so that is why it has taken until recently to actually book a flight for the 28th. Better late then never as they say though.

Over the past year, being separated from new and old friends by a few 100km's I've started to realize how much these people aren't exactly a necessity but more of a treat. You still live, and if anything seeing these people after an extended separation gives you so much more to talk about and really just makes it a whole lot more interesting. I've never been exactly good at meeting people, nor am I a very clingy person when I do meet someone new. I always miss calls, never respond to texts and hardly ever ring anyone. It is not me being uncaring or not liking peoples company. I just really really enjoy being by myself and doing my own thing. I'll either make a great boyfriend one day for an independent young lady who wants something serious that doesn't really want to alter her life... OR a terrible boyfriend for some poor girl who constantly needs love and attention looking for a life with someone. I love, I care, I feel, I hurt. I am a human being. I just consistently need space and I quite often am bored of people I spend to much time with, people could quite possibly be quickly bored with me also, I do not deny that. This is why I feel traveling is going to suit me perfectly.

I don't work.
I do my own thing all the time.
I am constantly meeting new (and incredible hopefully) people all the time.
I see the world.

My current absolute plans are travel to Bali. That is all. Things I would like to do is

Travel from Bali to Bangkok without catching a plane. It will be by foot, moped, bus, ferry and another form of transport that is needed to get me there.

From Bangkok I am catching a plane to London, I have half a dozen friends in England I met backpacking in Australia so hopefully I will catch up with them.

England will be a base while I catch cheap flights and travel to France, Sweden and Germany, to catch up with friends from all of those countries. All of these friends owe me a couch to sleep on, as I have accommodate them in my own home. The Swedish girls I know. Well three of them slept in my room... for a month... rent free!! I'm a sucker for that accent, o my my. Har du nagonsin sparkat en clown? It was a wonderful experience, Swedish massage, beautiful, blonde, tanned girls constantly in bathing suits or their underwear. Waking up to breakfast cooked every morning, coming home from work to ice coffee and Swedish treats! Ahhh see these are the memories I want to keep! Not the time I drove 120km's because my long distance girlfriend broke up with me via text :S. By golly though, which one have I thought more about? So really, hopefully I can talk all of my friends over there into some free hospitality .

Depending on funds, after a few months in Europe, plans are as follows.

A flight to Santiago in Chile where I will proceed to travel up the west coast of south America, into central America. I will continue along the west coast up through Mexico and into California where I will meet up with a friend in L.A. Matt Minshall, basically a professional surfer/snowboard/screenwriter. I can't wait! from there it will be the flight home.

Lets see how these plans go shall I, if things change and I wonder if i went astray or not, I can always come back to this first entry and have a look at what I thought was going to happen, to what really has happened. I am excited at who I will be and the memories I have in this journal at the end of this year. I wonder if anyone will follow me? Well thank you for reading if you got this far, hopefully I have sparked some good thoughts in your mind, and got you thinking about something you want to do in life.