Australia

4000km’s driven over 45 hours, 3 states, 1 territory, 2 weddings, 2 flights, multiple sad goodbyes and you are now getting an idea of the last couple of weeks that we have had during Australia on our mission to say goodbye to our friends and family as we prepare to head off on the adventure of a lifetime.

I guess I better introduce myself, how rude! My name is Kyle Macdonald, I’m 22 years old, I was born in Mackay North Queensland – Australia and have lived up in the hot tropics all my life. After finishing school I attended James Cook University in Townsville and acquired a Bachelor of Science with a major in Zoology. After graduating we moved to Cairns and lived and worked for a year to gather some funds for this adventure, but ended up leaving with much more.
Before I go any further it only seems logical that I introduce the ‘we’ and ‘our’ I have been referring to. I met a bright eyed girl called Kirby at university and upon further investigation I discovered she shared a similar dream and enthusiasm for travel and we really hit it off. Long-story-short we are loving each other and finally about to begin this quest INTO THE UNKNOWN. So now you know a little bit about me.
Our journey begins in Cairns where we decided to live for a year to gather the necessary ‘mula’ for this trip, however, as I was saying before we acquired much more than funds. During our search for a place to live we stumbled across a sharehouse full of Japanese travellers and students who decided to call Cairns home for a short time and we joined them. After a few days we realised that this wasn’t an ordinary sharehouse. The owners of the house, Angelo & Jo, lived upstairs and treated everyone in the sharehouse downstairs as if they were extended family and before we knew it 12 months had past and Kirby and I were leaving Cairns having made friends for life.
After leaving Cairns we drove 8 hours south to Mackay to farewell my family. We then drove another 12 hours southwest to Dalby where Kirby was a bridesmaid for a friend we met while studying at uni. After the wedding it was another hellish 25 hour drive to Victor Harbor in South Australia where I farewelled my Mum, Dad, and Grandma. As I am writing this we are flying from Adelaide to Sydney for Kirby’s uncles wedding and then from Sydney to Darwin to farewell Kirby’s parents and on the28th of March 2011 we are flying from Darwin to Ho Chi Minh city, VIETNAM!!!
Our plan is to backpack throughout Asia up into Europe and if permitted flying to South America and backpack up to the north. We have never backpacked before and no doubt I will have some interesting stories to post throughout our travels. So if you think this might interest you keep an eye on this blog

Cheers, Kyle