Us poor, poor contracts have to head down the mountain to the lowlands every time we are due to update our KITA’s and finger prints. And yes we don’t get why we need to get a new picture and finger prints every 6-9months. We don’t change prints and really, other than hair changing you don’t really change at all. Never the less it’s a 4am start to get to the helipad for the chopper down. Get breakfast and wait for immigration to open at 9am (or when they want to see people). And as Peter is off on leave we need to come back up the same day. Gobey has organised for us to get the truck convoy back up at 1.30pm. So we need to make sure we are all sorted with immigration, fed and ready to get back up the hill. It should only take 2 hours to get back up the hill, so home for tea time. We arrive at the convoy meeting area and the guy Gobey had been speaking with said they were short of guys and cars today so we had to go in a bus. No problems with that as there was just Gobey, Sandra and me. He told us the bus number and off we went. Now when he told us about the shortage of cars, he did ask if we wanted a bullet proof bus. All 3 of us said no. So to my surprised we are stuck on a bullet proof bus. Now I can’t lie, I was starting to have a panic attack and cry as this was not a good feel. No windows, no outside light and your phones don’t work. I might have been ok if the fact I saw Gobey try to call the Command Centre to say we were on the bus. It felt like hours before the door opened so Gobey could call and I was like a bat out of hell running off the bus. That bus was not for me. And as Gobey said my OCD has made it an issue for me to ride but I don’t care, we now get to ride in the normal bus. 1hr 45 later and we are at Hidden Valley and the security cars gets to take us home. Not a bad day after a very early start, but KITA’s are sorted and our re-entry permits for another 6 months.
