This is the first post of what will hopefully be many describing an amazing journey we are about to take (subject to the visa being granted of course). The 'we' is me Daryl, my partner Rachelle (pronounced Rachel (blame her mum) ) and our 4 year old daughter Lauren.

I can't really remember when it was exactly that we decided we want to emigrate to Australia. We were thinking about it for a while and it was after we visited an OZ migration Expo in London in Nov/Dec 2004 I think that we committed to going for it.

We started the application process in January 2005 and now finally, in March 2006, we've done everything we can to secure the Visa and are now just waiting on a decision. Anyone who thinks it's easy to get into Australia - think again! It's been a long drawn out, expensive process.

While we're awaiting the decision we will be shortly taking a 3-week holiday/recce to Oz. Having never visited Oz before we thought it would be wise to actually see if we liked it first before we emigrated. I know it sounds obvious but you wouldn't believe the amount of people that emigrate without ever having visited the place.

It's now 10 days to go until we jet off on what will hopefully be a holiday of a lifetime!