The Long Ride South:

The Long Ride South: World Cup 2018

Now you probably know that Australia is a big place and that to get anywhere takes an age, well we were just about to find this out for real. Our next destination was the Opel mining town of Coober Pedy but from Uluru, it was just too far to drive in one hit, so we decided to have a leisurely start and then break our journey somewhere near the South Australian border.

We took our time getting up and having breakfast, nipped to the supermarket for some supplies and a coffee, then went to the get diesel at an astronomical price, (yeah, yeah, we are in the middle of a desert, I know), and finally started the trip south. The first part of the trip was retracing our steps back to the Stuart Highway some 244km before we turn towards Kulgera, which would be our stop for the night. Kulgera is the very definition of a one-horse-town, there is literally the Roadhouse & petrol station, a campground and a police station, if there was any more to this outback metropolis, they were doing a very good job hiding it.

It's a small world sometimes, the guy that checked us in was a Kiwi

from Addington. He told us where our spot was and where the shower block was and that happy hour in the Roadhouse was from 6 to 7pm, so just the important stuff. We set up camp and chilled out after a long drive, before heading off for a happy hour beer or few in the quirky Roadhouse bar, before returning to our wheeled home and making some dinner and turning in for the night. We had another 400km + day driving day tomorrow, so we wanted to make a reasonably early start.

It's obvious to me that we are just novices at this camper/caravaning thing in comparison to the Aussies who do this sort of trip all the time because even though we got up early, showered and ate breakfast to get us on the road, we were still almost the last people to leave the campsite that morning. We have a lot to learn... 

The Stuart Highway that runs between Adelaide & Darwin is a smooth 2 lane stretch of bitumen, so I locked the cruise control at 90kph and followed the white lines for kilometer after the kilometer. The Outback is vast, a vast empty plain of almost nothing but sand & rocks and desperate vegetation. You travel along unbelievably long straight sections of roadway with nothing but stunted shrubs and dusty trees for as far as the eye can see, no people, no buildings, no features and hardly any other traffic. I was expecting to see some wildlife along the journey, maybe some dingo’s and the ubiquitous kangaroo that Australia is so renowned for, but the only wildlife we saw were dead at the side of the road, sheep, cows, and kangaroos, the only living things were saw were the crows pecking at the carcasses.

Another interesting sight along the highway was the mangled wrecks of cars that had obviously had an unfortunate interaction with the pre-deceased wildlife, and after a while Fiona & I started to wonder if these were left here as a warning to other road users, if so, it was a pretty sombre reminder that these roads could be dangerous. As you move towards a subtle rise in the landscape you wonder what you might be able to see on the other side, only to crest the hill and see even more of what you have been looking at for the last 100kms. Occasionally, the landscape will change almost imperceptibly and where there were short desert oaks and wild shrubs now there are only shrubs, with not a tree in sight, then before you know it, it was back to dusty trees. This went on for hours as we cruised steadily south, counting down the endless kilometers towards our destination.

We could tell we were approaching the World Capital of Opal mining when about 30kms away from our destination when small pyramids of dirt started to appear on the skyline, followed by more pyramids and bigger piles of multicoloured dirt until the whole of the landscape both sides of the road was covered in them. Then we started seeing the occasional piece of mining equipment or an excavator in a hole, and signs marking out mining access points, and finally, we could just about make out a few building in the distance. Welcome to Coober Pedy.

Uluru Magic

Uluru Magic: World Cup Russia 2018

Wednesday was going to be a busy day,... What with checking out of our hotel, picking up our Campervan, dropping off the rental car, and provisioning for a week in the Outback, and then leaving Alice Springs and driving 450kms to Yulara. But like with many good plans, everything fell into place like clockwork, and by 11:00am we were doing some hard mileage in the van. I think both Fiona & I were a little nervous about driving this 7m long behemoth of a campervan at first, but as the road slipped behind us, we soon got used to it. The road was long but scenic with a few stops along the way, the main one for coffee, but by 5:00pm we rolled into our campground 

After this long drive and our first cooked meal in the Campervan that we are

now re-naming to ‘Dilbert’, we got ourselves ready for an early night. Converting the seating area into the bed was more effort than we both would have expected, and then making up the bed with sheets and duvet’s seemed intensively laborious, but once we were finally in the bed, we soon drifted off to sleep.... So whilst sleeping in a campervan is significantly better than sleeping in a tent, it shares some of the initial discomforts and niggles, especially on the first night.  Trying to find a comfortable position was a struggle at first, and as you can imagine, every time I rolled over the van would move with me a little, and I am sure that Fiona was dreaming of earthquakes. I woke a few times in the night to try and find a better position, but even though it was rather cold, I think we were both warm enough and overall got a reasonable nights sleep. 

We were both awake early but as it was so cold it was a struggle for us to get out from under the warm duvet, so we didn’t surface for a couple of hours. For those of you that regularly travel in a campervan, you will fully understand what I mean when I talk about the intricate ballet that has to be performed by 2 people sharing such a confined space and believe me, this was not as small as it could have been. If we both started moving about at the same we would end up either bumping into each other or various cabinets or drawers, so I reluctantly stayed under the duvet while Fiona made breakfast, but after negotiating our complex dressing maneuvers we managed to get ready to head into the Uluru / Kata Tjata National Park.

Dilbert cruised briskly through the park gates and along the winding roads between the dunes towards the imposing orange monolith called Uluru, once known as Ayres Rock. As we got closer it didn’t matter what angle you viewed it from, some new detail, shape or colour would present itself. We headed to the Cultural Centre to get a flavour of what this sacred place meant to the local indigenous peoples and learn something of the history before jumping back in the van to get up close and personal with the Rock. We first visited the sacred waterhole and then the sunrise viewing spot, then completing a full circuit before stopping for a spot of lunch. This is where traveling in Dilbert comes into its own as we just pulled over into one of the many viewing areas and made up our lunch. As it had taken so much effort to make up the bed the night before, we had not bothered to take it down, so we luxuriated in the back for a while eating lunch before heading out on another circuit, this time with Fiona driving so I could get a good view.

We wanted to get a good position for the sunset later that evening, but we also

wanted to do a few night-time activities that needed to be booked, so we headed back to Yalara. Fiona booked us into a guided Astronomy tour for that evening, and a light display the following evening, after which we tooled around for a short while before heading back into the park again. We got to the designated sunset viewing area nice an early and early and pulled out our sliding BBQ and started making Dinner so that we could have it and watch the sun go down. I am beginning to like this campervan thing....

As we prepared a chicken salad, the car park started to fill up and by the time we sat down to eat and watch the spectacle, the place was suddenly heaving. We had a great position to watch in wonder as the colours on the rock changed from a brilliant yellow to bright orange to a dark red ochre, and all the colours in-between. It was truly stunning and even after the sun went down and the rock grew darker and darker, we sat and watched while many of the other viewers slipped away. Finally, we jumped back in Dilbert and drove back in the twilight towards our campground, where we would pull-in and hook up to power before heading off to the Astronomy tour. 

There is always something to see in the night sky, and even though we had a three-quarter moon giving off enough light to give us shadows, we still managed to learn something new from our jocular guide ‘Eddie”. We had a brief discussion about the night sky and about the size of space, (it’s BIG by the way), and then we looked through a couple of telescopes focused on distant stars and nebular that were visible on this night, and Fiona even got a great photo of the Moon through one of the telescopes. With the excitement over, it had been a good day, and we headed back to Dilbert for the night, with a plan of getting up at ridiculous-o'clock to watch the Sunrise over Uluru.




The alarm sounded at 6:20am the next morning, and after throwing on some

clothes and a quick pee, we were on the road to the sunrise viewing platform on the other side of the park. We arrive just before sun-up to join the other 200-300 intrepid souls who had also thought this to be a good idea... I did manage to find a reasonable position from which to view the sunrise, but it felt somewhat shallower with these many people around me, and while the view did not disappoint, the rugby scrum of amateur photographers and Japanese tourists did.  The saving grace was that Fiona and I walked back to the car park and started to prepare breakfast while everyone else got in their appropriate transport to be whisked away to the next photo opportunity. Meanwhile, we sat down to an egg sandwich and a pot of plunger coffee in the ever-increasing warmth of the sun, and by the time we had finished our leisurely breakfast and packed up, we were one of only a handful of cars left in the car park from the 100’s that had been there when we arrived.

Next on our agenda was to visit the Kata Tjata formations, (formally called ‘The Olgas’), about 40kms west of Uluru. I’m not sure where all the rest of the crowds had gone, but we had a very quiet ride out to KataTjata, with only a handful of other vehicles on the road. We spent a couple of hours hiking up and back to a viewing point between the domes and then back for lunch before having a mid-afternoon siesta in the back of Dilbert, which was still made up as a bed. This is the life... Eventually, we took a meandering drive back to our campsite and took our own sweet time making a lovely steak and salad for dinner. 

The evening’s entertainment was to go to an art installation called “Field of

Lights”, which as the name suggests, was actually a field of lights. Having said that, it was about 300,000 hand-blown, fibre-optic, ever-changing coloured solar lights spread over a 12-acre site, which was quite impressive. We got to walk amongst these lights for a while, and even though we tried to capture the scene, our cameras did not do it justice. This was to be our last night in the Ayres Rock Campground, so we tidied Dilbert up a little before bringing this long couple of days at Uluru to close. Tomorrow we would hit the road and head south.

And We Are Off: World Cup 2018

And We Are Off:  World Cup 2018

We had almost a whole weekend before we got on a plane which was spent doing those last minute things that you always forget, like nipping to the supermarket, finding your old power adaptors and packing. By Sunday afternoon we were itching to get going, and when Jenny & Roel kindly picked us up to take us to the airport, we were ready.

Everything was running like clockwork, we had 11 weeks worth of clothing & supplies in our modest backpacks, were at the terminal in good time, and there were no queues at check-in so nothing could stop us now.

"Do you have a Visa for Australia, Mr. Green..?" Doh...!! How did I forget that as a UK passport holder I need a visa to visit Australia, what a rookie error? Fortunately, they allow you to buy a visa at check-in for the princely sum of $50 in cash, which was the exact amount I had left in NZ dollars...., Phew..!!

I have always disavowed the idea of flying on Emirates Airlines, because of their longtime association with the "Arse", (a football team from Woolwich that think that they are a North London team). But I have to be the bigger man and admit that whilst Emirates knows nothing about Football, they know how to run an airline. The Airbus 380 was huge, very well-appointed, and comfortable, with great food and a state-of-the-art in-flight entertainment system, (thoroughly recommended). The three-and-a-half hour flight time to Sydney, literally 'flew' by. 

We had no problems with Australian customs or getting our bags off the carousel, (flying on a Sunday evening is so choice), and getting our airport hotel was a pretty straightforward bus ride and quick 10-minute walk. We were due to fly out of Sydney to Alice Spring first thing the next morning, so we quickly settled into our lovely room and hit the sack.

We were up and out early and at the airport in plenty of time, and before we knew it we were winging our way to Alice Springs and checking into our hotel by 1pm. Our room wasn't ready so we walked a good 15 minutes into town and had a coffee, a bite, and a quick look around, before making our way back to our Hotel to rest up and relax. It had been a hectic couple of days traveling to get here so we picked a very nice Korean restaurant for an early dinner, before going to bed at 9pm...!!

Today we hired a car to allow us to travel beyond Alice Springs, and after a hearty breakfast and a view of the city from ANZAC hill, we headed off on the Red Centre Highway into the spectacular scenery. We didn't really know where we were going, but it didn't really matter as the amazing views of the West MacDonnell range drifted past, and we drove through some true outback scenes. We eventually ended up heading to a place called Standley Chasm, where after a 20-minute hike we found ourselves in a narrow slot canyon with towering red walls and simply breathtaking views. This is what we had come to Australia for, those distinctive desert landscapes & interesting formations that you just can't find anywhere else. Fiona & I are both looking forward to the next 2 weeks, picking up our campervan, and driving first to Ullaru, and then south through the red desert towards the coast. If today was a sampler of things to come, then bring it on.

Last Day in the Office: World Cup 2018

Last Day in the Office: World Cup 2018

Well, it has been a long long time coming, but my final day of work for the next 11 weeks is over…. Time seems to drag incredibly slowly when you are waiting years to do something, and even though at some point it felt like this day would actually never arrive, it’s here now. I wish I could say that I will miss going into the office day after day while I am away, but that would be just a lie, but I will miss the people I work with, especially my PMO team. It was very nice of them to organise a Morning Tea for my going away, but I have left them in good hands and I can finally unplug from work and enjoy my time away.

The first stop on this trip will be Alice Springs... See you there 

Cutting it fine : World Cup Russia 2018

Cutting it fine: World Cup Russia 2018

So here we are in late May 2018 with less than 3 days to go before me & Fiona get on the first plane flight as part of our journey to Russia, and there is not a World Cup ticket in sight…??

When I booked our first batch of tickets in October last year, I carefully read the FIFA website that assured me that the ticket distribution for overseas visitors to Russia would be beginning in April this year and carry on into May. “No Worries”, I thought, plenty of time to have the tickets delivered and head off on our merry way…. The FIFA website told me that I would get an email confirmation when the tickets were dispatched, and maybe even a text message when they were with the DHL Express courier for delivery…. But oh no, with a couple of weeks to go with no tickets and no email, I started to get very concerned and try and contact FIFA to get some idea of what is happening.

Of course, it’s easier to steal secrets from the government than it is to get FIFA to communicate with you. Their web page allows you to fill in a contact form and send it to FIFA, but I can tell you from recent experience, all you get back is a standard email, “Thank you for your enquiry. Due to the many enquiries, we receive on a daily basis…. Blah blah blah…”. However, the email does include a phone number in Zurich, Switzerland, and once you have received several of these automated replies from FIFA, spending $20 to sit in a call system on the other side of the world for 20 minutes, starts to sound appealing.

With a just over a week to go, I relented and phoned FIFA, sat in a queue for 20 minutes, only to speak to a woman whose English was impeccable, but her knowledge of even the most basic elements of the FIFA ticket distribution process was sadly lacking…. She did reconfirm with me that all tickets were being distributed by DHL Express and that I would receive a confirmation when the tickets were on their way, all info I already knew….

Finally, with a week to go, I called DHL here in New Zealand who were strangely unaware that they are part of the distribution process for the World Cup tickets this year. However, I got put through to the Contact Centre Manager, and while he had no knowledge of DHL’s involvement in ticket distribution for the World Cup, he said he would look into the problem and get back to me. The Contact Centre Manager, Nick, reached out across the global DHL network, initially to understand what was happening, he then identified the right people at DHL in Italy, tracked down where my tickets were, and gave me a call to tell me they were on the way. Even though it has only been a few days, he kept me up to date with the situation all the way through, letting me know when the package was due to be on the plane down to Christchurch, and putting a hold on delivery so that I can collect the tickets in person. So with 3 days to go, I have now picked up the tickets from my local office and I could not be more relieved.

So many many Thanks to DHL Express in New Zealand for going the extra mile to help out someone who is not even a direct customer of theirs. And “Thanks for Nothing”, to FIFA for your lack of customer service and piss poor communication, you could learn a lot about customer service from DHL…