Thread: Kookynet - the French ARE coming!

Latest correspondence - and the Australian sponsor page on their website: http://www.kookynet.net/252.html

Dear Chris and Jenny,

Our Australia sponsors’ page is now on line ! Check it out !
We shall let sponsors know ourselves that this is up and running.

Did you get a chance of reading some of our earlier newsletters ? If you did, we hope that you found it of interest somehow.

You have done so much for us, your help has been incredibly generous and efficient. In French, we say about people like you that they can‘move mountains’and you have been doing just that for us. Our gratitude is beyond words, and not just as far as our command of English goes, we are at a loss for words in French as well.

Now that our sponsors’ page is online, we relish at the thought of letting know some of the British LRO here in Dubai what a welcome we have received from you Aussies. A far cry from their comments as to what to expect, us being foreigners and all ! They meant well of course, trying to protect us from disappointments but boy, were they proved wrong !!

This is a quick update on how things are going for us :

- We feel our feet are in the starting blocks as our excitement is growing everyday. Can’t wait to get Down Under !

- A friend in Dubai has let us borrow his Serie III Ambulance so that we can move about in style. We would not dream of driving anything but a Land
Rover, would we ??
Photo attached with lovingly proud owner Thierry



-The ship with our container is currently encountering rough sea conditions and is running late from scheduled ETA in Kuala Lumpur Wednesday. Since the window for it to catch on to the next ship heading to Fremantle is only 6 to 9 hours , we are not certain at the moment that our container will be on the ship arriving August 28. Today is a holiday in Dubai so we will only be able to have a clear update on this matter by tomorrow Tuesday.

- We have been getting some input from various sources as to how much time it may take in WA to clear vehicle from Quarantine : this process could apparently take up to 2 weeks…Ouch ! Last Thursday, we emailed to Rich (KIE4) who is alledgedly going through this ordeal at the moment to have some details, but we have not heard from him.

- We have been painfully trying to figure out in what sequence the whole clearing process is conducted. It seems so complex that we are considering getting assistance from an agent. We have asked Nick (loanrangie) who is a customs broker in Melbourne, to point us to their contact in Fremantle/Perth but no news since our last email exchange last Friday.

- During this foreseen waiting period without our vehicle, finding people to accept to host us is becoming a real challenge. Richard, our contact through LandRover Brotherhood had previously offered help but the timing could not be worse since he just got a baby. Also in the past, we relied several times on a webclub called couchsurfing.com, but this site is blocked in the Emirates for ‘moral’ reasons as it is considered a dating site… We were thinking that maybe only one of us could come first. It might be easier to ask for hospitality for one person instead of two.

So this is where we are at the moment. We will keep you posted as to how all these subjects develop in the coming days.

Cheers,
Martine and Robert

What do they want to do though?
Are they happy to be shown all the sites or do they want to explore themselves.
I only know from experience that travelling O/S and visiting relo's and friends that they automatically set their own itinary for the travellers. We should ask them what they want to do before filling up there time here.