Thursday, July 14, 2011

Mackay, QLD

After leaving Agnes Water we were heading towards Mackay. Since we had left late we knew we wouldn’t make it that day so we took our time and slept at a rest stop on the highway. At the rest stop we turned on our laptop, plugged in the portable speakers we had bought in Thailand and watched a movie.

My family owns a condo building in Mackay where they rent out the units. We called my aunt’s husband, who owns the building, and asked if there was any way we could stay there. He made a call to the people managing the building and even though the building was fully rented out he was able to get us an apartment for the night. The catch was the apartment was under renovations so it wasn’t 100% finished. We weren’t too worried since we had been sleeping in a car for the past few weeks.

We arrived in Mackay around mid-day but since the apartment was under renovations we couldn’t check in right away. We walked around the town a bit and did some grocery shopping for the evening. While we were walking around a park near the building, a man approached us and said he was with the local newspaper. He wanted to know if could take some photos of us using the exercise equipment in the park for a story. We said sure and gave him our names. While Andrew was posing with the various equipment I was cheering him on. He told us we would be in the next day’s edition of the Daily Mercury. And that is how we made it into an Australian newspaper. When we were able to check in we were stunned. We would be staying in a two storey penthouse apartment with a hot tub on the top deck. With the exception of the two spare bedrooms the apartment was mostly finished. Unfortunately the hot tub was not yet in working order. It didn’t faze us. We had stunning views, a large kitchen we could cook in and a TV! This was luxury. We spent the night cooking and watching TV. Oh how we missed “normal” life! The next day we checked out and were again on the move north, but not before purchasing a copy of the Daily Mercury.

Here's a link to the article:

http://www.dailymercury.com.au/story/2011/05/12/new-look-caneland-park-opens/




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