Almost a Year

We are fast approaching our first anniversary of arriving in Saudi Arabia. Only 1 year ago we were busy packing up our house and arranging for storage, submitting our resignations and waiting for our visa’s to arrive. How quickly a year passes, and in some respects how slowly it seems to go when we think of our families at home and especially our new arrival this year, Hannah – she is growing so quickly.




I just had a 5 day weekend from work :) and how nice it was. The days were owed in lieu from back in April this year when I represented PMU at Seef Mall in Bahrain.

Jesse decided that seeing as I had this time off, that he would also take a day off, and we drove up to Riyadh where we did our patriotic duty and voted at the Aussie Embassy for the upcoming election. His passport was also due to expire so instead of sending it via DHL he could submit that at the same time for renewal and save the money – yeah rite – he had all the paperwork filled out, had his passport pics, the trouble was they were too small so no success with this task.

We took off from our compound on the Wednesday at 9am and arrived safely on the outskirts of Riyadh at about 12.30. It took a full tank of fuel to get there and as we went through the last checkpoint before Riyadh the fuel light was on and flashing – and petrol stations every 500 meters – all on the wrong side of the freeway! We reduced our speed back to use less petrol and safely made it to a petrol station a few kilometers further up the highway.If anyone is ever driving from Al Khobar to Riyadh and when they are about 1/2 way there and running low on fuel – then the last petrol stop is just after the red sand dunes, otherwise it becomes a bit worrying that it won’t be made to the next fuel stop – and it’s toooooooo hot to walk it!

All was going well and on time, as we expected and the car went like a dream. To save battery time on the GPS we didn’t turn it on until after we filled up with petrol. We punched in the Diplomatic Quarter for Riyadh where all the embassies are situated, and it promptly directed us to get off the freeway, do a u turn and go back the way we had come from.

As everyone knows, Jesse is not that good at directions, but even he thought this a bit “wrong” but we put our faith in the good old Garmin and went as directed. It directed us back about 7 km’s telling us to keep to the Dammam/Al Khobar road then once we had passed by virtually the last turn off it was showing as another 300 odd kilometers – back to where we had come from.Jesse very quickly pulled up on the side of the freeway, (sand spraying out from the tyres and back slewing almost sideways) – this was so we could drive through the sand back to the exit road if needed. We turned the GPS off, turned it back on and re-programmed it and as expected it was telling us to go back the way we came – we didn’t have to go through the sand as it was showing us an exit road close by and we came back into Riyadh by the old Dammam Highway.

This was a lot more picturesque than the regular route albeit a lot more bumpier road surface – think of roads in north Queensland back in the seventies. There were goat, sheep and camel markets quite a bit of the way in, complete with their hand built ply wood compounds (humpies)next to the animal pens.

We made it to the diplomatic quarter with no worries. We found an ATM no worries, as the embassy only accepts cash for passports – problem, it wouldn’t accept our Aussie card :( We then tried to find the embassy but that proved to be a bit more of a problem. The fire dept couldn’t tell us, various guards couldn’t tell us – a sweeper at a shopping centre told us it was at circle 8 so he knew a bit more than a lot more “official” type people.

We finally found our embassy and made it in to vote with 3 minutes to spare as the voting closed at 3pm…..lol and luckily found an ATM on the way that accepted our card – so voting done, now to find accommodation I have pics of this and I will post in the next few days of where we stayed and what we saw.