Hey, Im Lee Harding, im 21 from telford, UK. After seeing the US and Canada in March/April 2007, i thought about travelling, i looked around the internet for info, i found a website called realgap.co.uk. i looked at there deals. it sounded all good so i booked my trip end of April 2007. i then found gapyear.com, this is the website there i met Louise Tarr, Lou booked with realgap aswell, Lou was off to Australia in november 2007 while i booked January 2008. After 2 weeks of getting to know Lou on gapyear.com and msn, i decide to leave in November aswell.

So then i asked work for a career break for one year. Richard, claire & Steve all said yes, in June 2007 i payed for my trip and booked my flight. the next stage was to save as much as i could.

My Leaving party was Saturday 10th November 2007, the party was at the white horse pub, we all had a great night, then we went onto pussycats for one last time, i was 2 hours late for work the next day where Steve Tranter was waiting foe me.

Then my final day at work was 14th November 2007, i finished at 2pm, it was first class day, the managers meeting was wicked, then at lunch time i had to go to the staff rest, where everyone was there, it was cool, davies and kirby did a speech, then i did one, once i finished work me Craig Davies, tom (Bakery Manager), Richard Kirby & my Dad all went to the pub. for about 45 minutes. pretty cool

Also today i went to see Derek & Margaret & Mark, then i went out with Claire, Adam, Karla & Ian aswell, got back home drunk, and me and my mum was packing my backpack.

Went to bed about midnight and woke up at 3am, we left about 3:30am, Me, Dad, Mum, Both Nans, Jodie, Terry, Kate & Darren went to the airport. I think my little cousin Katie came to the airport, cant remember now.

Got to Heathrow London, at about 8am, met Lou for the first time in person, we both checked into together, Then i Met Lou & vicky at weatherspoons again, where all the real gap group was, big group.

The plane left about 11:30am, then we was all off on our 22 hour flight to Sydney. with one hour stopover in Singapore. This is the start of a amazing trip.

Once we landed, we decide to all check in and go for our first night out, we ended up at the local 3 wise monkey's. me and lou got lost on our way back to the hostel.