We also thought we would have had more than 2 hours in a bed over that time period. Since departing Sydney on Friday lunchtime we've spent 24 hours in the air via Hong Kong where we saw the first 45 minutes of the 2010 World Cup in a departure lounge in between transfers. We arrived in Jo'burg early on Saturday morning dropped our bags off and headed straight for the FIFA Media Centre in Sandton to pick up our media accreditation because that would be the logical and obvious place to get it right? Wrong. Stadiums only for media accreditation pick up.  It also gave us our first taste of the organisation of the tournament where well meaning locals in FIFA garb will give you very detailed directions to somewhere they actually have no idea of its location with a massive smile rather than admit they can't help you.

We returned empty handed to our hotel after a quick pit stop of a fry up and our first Castle beer as time was against us to rendezvous for departure for our first taste of the action - England's opening game against the USA at Rustenburg. We left around 2.30pm to make the 145km trip into the mountains. We returned to the hotel at 2.35 after Hansford realised he'd left his ticket in the hotel room. Good start.

I won't give you a match report as you know all that by now. Suffice to say England were well supported. As ever. And completely under-delivered. As ever. Royal Bafokeng is a nice enough, compact stadium but the surrounding areas leave a lot to be desired, as did the road system providing the only means of getting there. It was our first insight into the reality of the World Cup in South Africa. What you see on TV in Australia will look fantastic and slick but the reality of being here as a fan is that the infrastructure outside and surrounding the stadiums leaves a lot to be desired. It's almost as if the stadiums had to be finished for obvious reasons but the surrounds needed another 6 months to be completed and they ran out of time. For those reasons the 145km trip home took the best part of 5 hours including over an hour to get out of the woefully inadequate coach park.

  

That meant we got home well after 3am and had a 5.30am meet up for the 6 hour trip to Durban for the first Socceroos game. Fuelled with a reserved expectation that we could be on the way to witness another historic Aussie World Cup showing the 6 hour trip flew by until we ended up for the Green & Gold Army pre match function in the glorious setting on the banks of a lake an hour outside of Durban. A barbeque lunch, a good drink and some words of wisdom from Messrs Muscat, Kosmina and Ray Martin (!) saw us finish the final leg of the journey to the spectacular new stadium in good spirits and fine voice. As we wound down the main road into Durban being greeted by car horns and vuvuzela horns to signal our arrival we arrive full of anticipation. How wrong we were. The Socceroos were the better side for around a minute. By 30 minutes it was game over and the Socceroos were lucky it wasn't five by half time. A half time which saw me knowingly line up for a warm beer (the grounds are running out of cold beer mostly before kick-off) only to see them run out completely when I was within touching distance of the bar. Could it get any worse?  Of course it could. A red card for our only hope of inspiration, another two goals and a complete footballing lesson meant the game ended with the Socceroos lucky to get nil. All we needed to round off a thoroughly miserable 90 mins after a thoroughly enjoyable day was to contemplate the prospect of a through-the-night 9 hour return trip to Joburg. As my body prepared itself for another night of upright snoozing I just hoped I managed to be asleep if (and at certain points it looked more like when) the driver nodded off and sent us hurtling down an embankment to certain death.

  

An 8am disembarkation gave us precisely one hour to have a quick shower before reconvening in reception for the trip to Soccer City for Holland v Denmark. Soccer City is certainly a fantastic football theatre but again the surrounds appeared unfinished but we managed to sort out our media accreditation with only three or four wrong sets of very well intentioned directions. We watched our third disappointing game in three days with the Dutch doing no more than they had to dispatch an impotent Danish side thanks in no small part to slice of comedy defending the world hadn't since...well...Saturday actually.

  

And so Monday night arrived and we looked forward to our first meal that didn't consist of plastic bottles of Budweiser with a biltong chaser. But more, much more than that...we coveted a full night's sleep in a bed.

Enjoy the pictures and videos that tell the full story. More to follow daily from here.

To see the World Cup Insider video from Day One...

Brought to you by Sony and Sony Ericsson - the only official technology providers of the 2010 FIFA World CupTM. See all the updates from the live from South Africa as our FourFourTwo Australia Insider boys take on 12 World Cup games in 15 days. More World Cup Insider videos, photos, news and analysis, right here.