The long drive home, and a surprise at the end of the journey

Back home in Mackay.

In order to bring our old couch to Mackay, we had arranged to collect a brand new trailer from a factory in Brisbane and deliver it to Mackay Trailers, run by a friend of ours here in Mackay. So on Thursday we went over to Brendale to pick up the trailer, then spent the rest of the afternoon finding things to put in it: our couch (which we'd lent to our previous church, Fairfield Christian Family), our push-mower (which we'd left with our friend Audrey since we house-sat for her in mid-2004), and a few other bits and pieces. My father and I put quite some effort into wrapping the couch matress thoroughly in in builder's plastic to keep the rain out—which was reasonably successful, but not perfect, as we discovered when we finally unwrapped it again this evening.

On Friday morning we took everything out to the car and packed it from floor to roof. With the back seats folded down, our Corolla has a large and almost rectangular cargo bay with no lip at the back, which was most convenient for loading in the cupboard inserts (which we'd hoped to be able to bring back with us, since my poor mother has been putting up with them lying sideways on the floor of my old bedroom in Browns Plains since early 2003).

Finally we left. It rained or drizzled almost the whole way, finally stopping around Miriamvale. We made it to Rockhampton around 7:15pm before stopping for the night. Hotels are not cheap in Rocky! (We paid $95 for the night, which included breakfast.) We considered ordering pizza for dinner, but changed our minds when we found out it would take an hour and a half to arrive! So we asked our hosts, who suggested a short drive to a nearby pub. But near the pub we found an Indian restaurant called Sitara, from which we got delicious (and quite spicy!) take-away food which we took back to eat in our room.

On Saturday after breakfast and filling up the fuel tank (isn't petrol getting expensive!) we drove on to Mackay, arriving around 1:30pm… to discover that our dodgy circuit breaker had flipped off while we were away, turning what little food we had left in the fridge and freezer into stinking mould! *Sigh* Laetitia gallantly cleaned the fridge out while I went off to buy groceries for restocking.