Having procured a job in outback Central Queensland has seen us stuck on the cattle station for nearly six weeks straight so we planned our romantic escape over a weekend. Not looking forward to a solid 3 hour drive on rough gravel roads, dodging 53 metre long cattle trucks, and avoiding numerous bulldust holes still saw us depart early hours of Saturday morning.
After a 90 minute of extremely slow driving, dodging numerous cattle on the road we arrived at a familiar scene. A car roll-over.
Not again!
Thankfully the young bloke was alright and explained he avoided some cattle but hit the bank and gracefully his car rolled on its side. The young fellow, who is a ringer, was actually from our cattle station. We were thankful he was alright, a bit shaken and bruised but not seriously hurt.
Snatch strap was quickly attached and the car bounced back on its 4 tyres revealing a not so pretty picture of the smashed up vehicle. It is what it is... these things happen in the outback and one always helps out. So we dragged his car to the edge as it was stuffed and wouldn't be going anywhere for awhile.
The unfortunate young ringer hopped in our car and we set off the arduous journey back to the cattle station where we had come from. Once we dropped him back we fueled up again at the cattle station because we wouldn't have made it out with the fuel we had left. And so we set off again for the second time. Fingers crossed we would make it out this time so we could enjoy our romantic weekend escape. Another 2 hours driving saw us back at the original roll-over spot. We left that behind in a cloud of dust as we continued heading toward civilisation.
After nearly 8 hours driving and the set-back of the car roll-over the lights of Emerald came into view. Yeah! Hopefully the restaurant hadn't closed yet... it was going on 8 p.m. and we were starving!
No such luck!
Restaurant had stopped serving food already, much to our dismay. Oh well, looks like it's Woolies special tonight whipped up in our cozy motel room.
I had been looking forward to the promised spa which turned out to be a bathtub... if you turn the tap on full blast it will give you those bubbles... just like a real spa... the friendly reception girl explained. Really!!!
It is what it is. The bed had 3 legs instead of 4 and an old pot was holding it up until a little hanky panky saw it crumpled and crashing into the tiled floor which cracked into numerous pieces. Oops!
While hubby was kept busy locating another pot to serve as a bed leg, I decided to put some crumpets in the dodgy looking toaster from last century. I wish I hadn't. Within minutes the fire alarm set off every dog in the neighbourhood until a suitable chair was found to stand on so we could murder this ceiling alarm good and proper. Mine workers trying to sleep in neighbouring rooms weren't happy by the sound of things as F# and S@ echoed through the place. Bugger!
Our romantic getaway was rather disastrous but hilarious nonetheless. The supposedly 5 star motel resort was very accommodating as far as getting a refund because we missed out on dinner which was paid for, the spa was a little bit classed as deceptive advertising and the 3 legged bed was definitely not up to safety standards lol...
Overall we did have a good drive and saw some amazing scenery, the romantic weekend getaway will never leave our memories and that's what makes life fun... Our dog was happy for us to be back home again... although she reluctantly handed my 4 legged bed back to us.
