Flamingo Flies Home

Did you know that a Flamingo can fly at speeds of up to 60kmh and can travel more than 500km in a single non-stop flight? Not a bad effort for a bird that weighs about 4kgs and has a wingspan over a metre.

Not bad sure, except we reckon our own Pink Flamingo camp chair has the flock covered. One of our Pink Flamingo's recently completed an epic journey of over 20,000kms after a delivery gone wrong which left us pretty impressed with its migratory capabilities. It's an interesting story of what can happen with an Australia Wide delivery, one that customers would rarely see or understand, it's also testament to the resilience of our special bird.

The initial delivery was to a customer in Margaret River WA, on the other side of the country from our Tuff Arse HQ in Melbourne so a decent delivery distance (although we’ve also delivered to Hermannsburg in the desert about an hour and a half west of Alice Springs - somewhat more remote). Except in the case of this WA delivery, when the customer received the Flamingo it had to be returned because the courier had damaged it in transit, not ideal. But what happened next was unexpected.

It was sent for return to Tuff Arse Head Quarters, simple enough you'd think however it was not to be the case. Apparently the labelling wasn’t clear, and no-one could be bothered trying to work it out, so every depot it arrived at just kept on sending it to a new destination, meaning the chair took off on laps around Australia shuffling from city to city looking for a home. It left us bamboozled to the point we figured it had entered the Matrix, and we stopped tracking it and just gave up. Then unexpectedly, nearly two months later, we got a phone call from ‘Brian’ at the Alexandria NSW Aust Post centre, wondering what was going on with this parcel that seemed to be be in an unending loop from one side of the country to the other. Instantly solved! Who would of thought that a simple phone call between two human beings could instantly solve a problem?

Six days later it actually turned up on our doorstep, nearly 8 weeks after it was first sent.

The Pink Flamingo's Migration Flight Path

For those interested in logistics (OCD anyone?) here is the birds itinerary:
Melb > Perth
Perth > Margaret River
Margaret River > Perth
Perth > Melb
Melb > Perth
Perth > Sydney
Sydney > Parkes
Parkes > Perth
Perth > Margaret River
Margaret River > Perth
Perth > Sydney
Sydney > Melb (home!)

We should note that in the meantime we had already sent a replacement bird to our customer which they received in good nick so all good happy customer. A shame that getting our own migratory bird back was such a different story. Testament to our pink bird though, when it did eventually arrive back to the nest after its 8 week holiday we unpacked it and apart from damage that had been done to the chairs carry bag the chair itself was in perfect condition and good to go. So forget about camping out in the in the harsh Australian bush, if a Flamingo Camp Chair can survive a 20,000 km+ Aust Post journey with 11 transfers we reckon it can handle what you throw at it.