Birtles and Bean recreation ride crosses Saudi Arabia and UAE as part of charity drive

Birtle and the Bean has made it to the United Arabs Emirates – but it wasn’t all smooth driving for the vintage fundraiser and its intrepid team.

For more than a century the Middle Eastern kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been closed and the thought of any foreign vehicle, let alone an Australian one, driving across it has been an impossible dream.

Until now. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman’s Vision 2030 plan to open up the country meant we could drive our 100-year-old Bean Fourteen open-topped sports car across the desert from the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf.

But first we had to get there. The Bean arrived by container from Greece in the Egyptian port of Alexandria and a labyrinth of documents, bureaucrats and officials that took an army of fixers two days to resolve. And that was quick.

“Man, you are going to have to be careful on the roads here in Egypt,” warned Egyptian rally driver and shipping magnate Dimaratos Tchacos. “The drivers are crazy.”

No warning could have prepared us for the honking, swerving, grinning melee of traffic exacerbated by the desperate desire to capture the Bean on iPhones on the road to Cairo.

Warren Brown’s cartoon for Birtles and the Bean’s Middle East leg.

Once in the Egyptian capital, heaving with a population almost the same as Australia, we headed to the pyramids of Giza that were teeming with hawkers, street vendors and tourists.

“You cannot bring that car in here,” warned the Tourism Police official. “Turn around.”

No doubt Francis Birtles encountered similar problems on his epic 1927 drive from London to Melbourne but quite possibly being asked to pay $US17,000 for a picture beside the Great Pyramid was not one of them.

Cartoonist Warren Brown and reporter Matthew Benns in The Bean at the Great Pyramids in Egypt. Picture: Supplied

The fact that we are raising money for the Royal Flying Doctor Service – more than $100,000 so far – did nothing to sway the Egyptian officials who could not see the promotional benefit of a photograph of the Bean with the pyramids.

“Well, we could always go to the Red Pyramid,” said our Egyptian guide Mohammed “Turbo” Ezzeldrine. “It is the third largest pyramid in Egypt and is about an hour’s drive.”

Driving up to the Red Pyramid, and next to it the famous Bent Pyramid, was like going back in time. The road was deserted, without a hawker or tourist in sight. Change those photographs to black and white and they could be of archaeologist Howard Carter on his way to discovering the Pharaoh Tutankhamun.

From there we continued the world tour of places nobody has ever heard of and headed down the coast to Safaga and a repurposed Grimaldi Line roll on-roll off ferry over the Red Sea to Duba in Saudi Arabia.

Planning the route was akin to threading a needle with the wars in Ukraine and, closer to home, in Gaza blocking the way and Houthi pirates infesting the Red Sea further south.

Just six months before, right-hand drive vehicles were not allowed into Saudi Arabia, but a change in the rules opened the way. The Bean and its back-up Ford Ranger support truck caused consternation for border officials who eventually let us in well after dark, which would have been fine if the headlights had not shorted.

The Bean and its back-up Ford Ranger support truck caused consternation for border officials who eventually let us in well after dark.

The following morning we rose before dawn to head down the coast and then across stunning, unexpected mountain ranges hammered brown by the sun into surreal shapes to Al Ula.

The blistering sun, dubbed by The Daily Telegraph cartoonist and Bean co-driver Warren Brown as “the Devil’s Anvil”, sucked moisture from exposed drivers and the century old car. As we stopped for team mechanic Tony Jordan to top up the radiator, Alnjeel charity director Turki Albalwi pulled up to invite us for lunch.

Team mechanic Tony Jordan tops up the radiator after “the Devil’s Anvil” sucked moisture from exposed drivers and the century old car.

“In our country, every stranger is a guest,” he said.

Over lunch he explained the benefits of having four wives although he conceded that the “wives don’t really like it that much”.

We drove on to the ancient tombs of Hegra, the economic centre and sister city of Petra in Jordan where Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade was filmed. Like the Red Pyramid, this UNESCO site flies largely under the tourist radar and is all the better for it.

As the setting sun burnt the world amber, you could feel history coming alive.

From there we drove out of the mountains and across the sandy expanses of Saudi Arabia to Hail, Buraydah and onto the capital Riyadh, where we met Australian Ambassador Mark Donovan.

“As far as I know you are the first Australian car to ever drive across Saudi Arabia,” he said. “That’s one for the record books.”

A week of driving 2000km across Saudi Arabia culminated in another tortuous border crossing at Hufof into the United Arab Emirates.

“How did you get this car into Saudi Arabia,” demanded an astonished customs official. “This is not allowed. Someone was not paying attention. They will be in serious trouble.”

Matthew Benns and Warren Brown in the United Arab Emirates. Picture: Matthew Benns

In Egypt the police had kept a close tab on our movements. One officer was overheard ringing in to say: “Sir, the Australian adventurers are here now.”

That reached another level in the UAE where police cars escorted us with flashing lights across the emirates to Dubai and a maelstrom of speeding rush hour traffic.

Kassem Younes, board member of the Australian Business Group in Abu Dhabi, welcomed the arrival of the Bean and the profile it had generated on social media across the Middle East.

“There is a huge amount of trade in food, beverage and technical commodities, and everything Australia can do to raise its profile here is fantastic,” he said. “The red Bean is certainly doing that.”

Duty done, the mighty Bean is back on a ship and heading to Asia.

DONATE: Birtles and the Bean fundraiser for Royal Flying Doctor Service