hey greg,
I'm leaving the uk on 29th May, heading to sydney, but spending a couple of weeks in Southern India and 3 weeks in northern thailand/Laos on my way to Sydney.
In terms of flights skyscanner.net & Airasia have been invaluable to me, managed to get flights one way from
London -> Kochi, India -> Kuala Lumpur -> Chiang Mai -> Kuala Lumpur -> Sydney for Aprox. £630, which i don't think i could have found much cheaper if i went direct. So getting to visit a few places into the bargain
Not sure about ozintro haven't looked at anything like that, i guess expecting to meet people along the way in hostels. I've booked 10 night in sydney and then after i get there i'll see what happens, maybe head north to try and get 3 months seasonal work for a visa extention early on (not sure on where yet), although the sticky posts on this site have gave me some good information to think about.
Shaun