If the last two years have taught us anything, it's that you can hit the road while taking the office with you.
If advances in remote working tools and networks have taught us anything, it might be that leaving work, without work coming along for the ride, is becoming increasingly difficult.
In April 2020, our Orchid Goes Remote article focused on the first of those lessons. We all left the office behind as COVID-19 turned our world upside down, but managed to keep the show on the road.
Fast forward to April 2022, and several members of the Orchid team set out to explore the boundaries of remote working, culminating in a memorable off-grid experience.
Anne, Nathalie, Steve, and David took different routes from Sydney to the extreme western edge of New South Wales. We met up at Broken Hill, a remote mining town about 500km away as the crow flies.
With no scheduled crow flights, we took the scenic route, driving over 2,000km to get there.
(For film buffs, we spent much of our time there in the bar of the Palace Hotel, which featured prominently in the classic 1994 movie 'The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert'.)
Orchid Rocks the Plains
Our ultimate destination? The inaugural Broken Hill Mundi Mundi Bash. This was a 3-day music festival featuring many Australian music legends. Apart from the music, the entire event was an extraordinary logistical feat. A pop-up town for 10,000 people on the flat, and seemingly endless, Mundi Mundi Plains. (If you've seen, 'Mad Max 2: The road warrior' from 1981, the scenery might look familiar.)
Think Woodstock in the desert, but with espresso vans, smoked brisket burgers, and composting toilets.
We finally achieved our goal. Off-grid. No wireless network, no internet, no power. The Remote, without the Work!
Then the long, not-so-winding road home...
