After finishing college I lived rent-free in a village pub where I saved money to go travelling. I was only 20 at the time and didn’t plan it very well, but nevertheless had a fun time travelling for about 7 months around New Zealand and Australia. Some of my favourite spots were Paihia Bay of Islands a few hours north of Auckland, travelling by train to Wellington, which cut through the breath-taking countryside of the north island, before heading to Aussie which included taking in Sydney, Surfer’s Paradise and camping in Byron Bay where a Brazilian friend taught me to bodysurf, and we hitched to Lennox Head to swim in tea tree lakes. I loved Victoria, travelling from Melbourne down the Great Ocean Road to Adelaide and trekking in some of the national parks of both Victoria (where I nearly stepped on a snake trekking back from a waterfall!) and South Australia (where my friend got pooed on by a parrot). Melbourne is a crazy city – I barely slept the entire time I was there! It’s hard to believe going travelling to the other side of the world by yourself in a pre-mobile phone era, I didn’t even have an email address at the time! I remember taking some photos with a cheap camera but think I lost them all.