Long story short – we’re flying tomorrow morning, Sunday July 27th departing Perth at 6:50am. In 24 hours, Jacob and I will be walking through those blue arches at Perth International Airport. Quite an achievement getting to this point. 🙂
In my last post, the tragic destruction of MH17 was still fresh news with the immediate and long term future very much up in the air. Our passports had been sent to the Russian embassy in Canberra, the very place diplomatic sanctions may well have been applied and staff expelled from our country for the misdemeanours of others on the other side of the world. Fortunately cooler heads have prevailed; our Prime Minister has toned down his initial posturing and left the work to the Foreign Minister, who by all accounts has done a great job and represented our nation well on the international stage in this time of sadness anger and political volatility. And most importantly to our plans, the officers of the Russian embassy have not been expelled and were able to process our visa applications promptly as requested.
Revisiting the week. On Friday, I posted the passports, our visa applications and $720 to pay for expedited processing of two business days. I used Australia Post Express Post Platinum, a $15.60 ultra premium postal service that is supposed to be overnight guaranteed from Balcatta to Canberra, and with tracking. The tracking showed the parcel had arrived in Canberra and was delivered on Monday. On Thursday morning, there was no record of the return package being posted, so I phoned the embassy.
Man with deep voice and strong Russian accent answered in Russian…. gulp.
Good morning Sir I said in my most friendly voice.
A stern ‘good morning’ was the reply.
I said I was hoping he could help me locate my visa applications.
‘When did you post them?’
‘Friday and you received them on Monday’
‘How do you know?’ the gruff voice asked.
‘Australia Post tracking’
‘I never trust Australia Post tracking he says. Name?’
After a little while of further exchanges he was pleased to announce that they had been approved and posted yesterday, Wednesday. We were best mates by the time I hung up, with him no doubt being pleased they had complied with the two day processing and whatever happened from here on was not his problem. A good conversation in the end, just a little daunting at the start.
The relief was amazing. Our Russian visas had been approved!! Along with our Chinese visas, and our Mongolian visas, this has been quite a saga. it meant the trip was happening. With all their different requirements; our determination to get the applications right the first time; it all being very new; and relying on the tour organisers to give us all the information we needed in a timely manner; and the need for some reason to give itinerary information that was not entirely accurate – it’s been quite a process. Now to wait for the overnight delivery. I’d have them by 10:30am.
Later in the day, my last day at work for several months, the relief was sullied by my friendly Australia Post delivery NOT bringing our passports back. And what’s more, there was no tracking information appearing on the Post website. Where were our passports. The Russian embassy said they posted them Wednesday. On the back of their assurances, I booked flights for Sunday. But with no tracking I had no clue at all as to where they were.
The week before Australia Post, a company I worked with for 15 years so knew their internal processes fairly well, had delivered the Mongolian visas back from Canberra in two days. I knew the local delivery centre had scanned the item around midnight when it arrived there and it was delivered the next day.
Would this happen with the passports this week?
To distract myself, I went off to the GP and had my Hepatitis top up injection – just to add to the certainty of an uncomfortable sleep. And our 32 year old fridge is making much louder noises than it has for the last few years; so knowing I was leaving soon and in a while Cass and Chris will be looking after the house, I got focused on researching new fridges. Don’t you love spending an extra $1300 just before a huge trip that is draining a hole in our reserves!! I recalibrated the power consumption meter I’ve had on the fridge for some time so it gave me useful comparative information and was quite shocked to find it has been using over 1300 kw/hr of electricity per annum. The new one is rated at 500 kw/hr. Now my solar cells might actually keep up with daily demand a little better, and we will save several hundred dollars a year in power bills, beauty. What’s more, we’ve bought one with a freezer on the bottom and it will be marvellous being able to open the top fridge door and see everything close at hand. No more bending down to see what is on the top shelf. This is disastrous for the kids though, who hide things on the top shelf they don’t want me to eat…. #rubbinghandswithglee
Anyway, sleep I did, and I was VERY relieved to see this on Friday morning. It meant I knew where the passports were and I could trust our local delivery procedures to work. Phew.
And sure enough, later in the morning, the package was delivered to my workplace. AND all the details were correct!
Oh, and whilst this has been happening, the car, remember the car, has been on it’s own journey across the ocean.
The long break in Singapore was not meant to happen. Someone delayed some paperwork somewhere along the lines. Urgent emails kept me distracted whilst waiting for news on the Russian visas. Now it’s arrived in Port Kelang, Kuala Lumpur and, 1$, our Malaysian shipping agent has not called me and asked where the keys are. This is all good.
Pretrip hair cuts have been had. Banks have been notified of us being overseas. Doggies have been taken on a nice walk around the lake, packing needs to be finalised and moved from piles into the backpack. Packing lists would be helpful here….
Reflecting on achievements to get to this point; I’ve learnt about:
Not a bad list really.
And in addition we’ve needed to do all the normal stuff of getting our own passports renewed, buying airline tickets based on an itinerary that we had to work out; working with another family to get our arrangements sorted; and working full time for the first time in decades. No one gives me any sympathy for this last point…. !
So it’s been quite a journey really, and we’ve not even left Perth yet.
And all of the above pales into insignificance when you consider how much the fine people at 4×4 worldexplorer.com have had to do. All the hotel bookings, all the route planning, dealing with the questions of 45 people. Thanks Bee and Thomas and the team.