Packed My Small Kids In The Car To Relocate But Didn’t Know To Where Until We Arrived

In 1999 I was living in Batchelor, Northern Territory. I was a single Mother of two beautiful boys, aged six and three-years-of-age. I owned the house we lived in and a second investment property in town. I was also working full time.

In April 1999, I decided to go away on a holiday with my little brother. My best friend was happy to look after my boys. I flew from Darwin, Northern Territory to Cairns in Queensland and my little brother met me in Cairns as he flew from Perth, Western Australia. It was just the two of us for eight glorious days. We toured the countryside, chartered a fishing boat, had so much fun white water rafting and even flew over the treetops on the skyrail. It was a holiday to remember.

Neither of us had ever been to Queensland before and yet I had always wanted to.

On the last day, my little brother and I had coffee on the balcony of our accommodation, before he left to head to the airport, as he flew out before me.

We were chatting away about what a fabulous time we had and my little brother looked at me and asked, “You really like it here, don’t you?”

I replied, “I love it here and it’s been an amazing time.”

He then surprised me by asking, “You will move here, won’t you?”

I responded, “No I can’t. I’ve got two kids, two houses and a full time job in Batchelor, so I cannot just pack up and leave.”

So that was the end of that conversation. It was soon time to put my little brother in a taxi to the airport and say our goodbyes. Three hours later, I too caught a taxi to the airport and flew home.

Well it seems my little brother knew me far better than I did myself because come early December 1999, I had decided I would relocate to Queensland. Where in Queensland? Well we wouldn’t know until we got there.

Wow what a decision. I quit my job. Had a large shed built at the back of my property. Packed up everything I wanted to keep and had it moved into the shed. Held a garage sale to sell all the things I did not want and donated a lot of things to people around town. Within weeks I had packed my life away.

We stayed through December so my oldest boy could have his seventh birthday party with his friends. This became the last party we would hold in our house.

We also had our last Christmas in Batchelor. We always had an orphans’ Christmas at my place every year. Anyone who did not have family in town was welcome to pop in and join us for Christmas lunch. We made our last one a big one.

Then suddenly it was mid January and time to go. The last thing I did was find a tenant for my house. The other property was tenanted.

Everything we owned was locked in the back shed and I would send for it when we got to where we were meant to be.

With nothing left to do, I packed both my children in my little Hyundai Excel, along with some of their toys, snacks, clothes for the three of us, three blow up mattresses, one set of bedding linen each, a pillow each, a microwave, one plate, one cup, one bowl and one set of cutlery each, one saucepan, one frypan and two microwave dishes. This should be enough to get us started wherever we ended up.

Now anyone who travels with young children, my boys being seven and fours years-of-age at the time, would know that they do not handle long car drives all that well. Even being super organised with toys, books, children’s music and snacks, they still only coped with a maximum of four hours a day.

Which was fine with me. We had no idea where we were going so we certainly didn’t have any timeframe to get to nowhere.

We would stop at the closest town, after we had driven for three to four hours each day. I would find a nice place to stay, always ensuring there was a swimming pool as the boys loved to swim. It would also keep them occupied and tire them enough so they slept well each night.

If we really liked the town we stopped in, we would sometimes stay an extra day. We did this in both Mount Isa, Queensland as they had a great dinosaur museum the boys loved and in Winton, Queensland, where the Waltzing Matilda museum captivated the boys.

Neither town suited us to put down roots but they were a great place to spend a couple of days.

We continued on our drive after Winton and stopped in Charters Towers for the night. We carried on the next morning and our next stop should have been Townsville, but Townsville is a large town and I was concerned I would get lost. So I explained to the boys that if, by some chance, we drove through and out the other side, then we would continue on. This would make the longest period in the car for the boys at any one time but they agreed.

We did stop in Townsville for lunch but then managed to find our way through and out the other side. We were now heading north through Queensland as Townsville is only 4.5 hours south of Cairns, where my brother and I had our holiday.

It was an extremely hot day that day and the boys, as good as they had tried to be on the long drive, they had enough about two hours after we left Townsville, so I said I would try to find somewhere to stay for the night.

We had just passed through a very small town called Tully, when I saw a sign saying Mission Beach next left. We decided to go see what Mission Beach was all about and surely there would be a motel or hotel we could stay in for the night.

The left turn was approximately 12 kilometres long with the town of Mission Beach at the end. The three of us were absolutely amazed at the scenery we were driving through. Long windy road with luscious rain forest on each side. It was so glorious that we decided then and there that we had found our new home.

We didn’t even look around Mission Beach at all, as our minds were made up. It seemed we had found a little patch of paradise.

It was 26th January, which happens to be the Australia Day public holiday, but I turned into the parking lot of the very first real estate agents office I saw. It was 4pm and we were very lucky to find the husband and wife who owned the agency, were there in the office. I explained I needed somewhere to live for the three of us.

The wife took us on a tour of three units that were vacant, that we could rent. We picked one, went back to the office, signed a lease and put down our first rent payment. We then moved into our new home in Mission Beach, Queensland at 6pm on 26 January 2000.

Ten days after loading our car in Batchelor, Northern Territory, we drove just over 2,650 kilometres, to our new home in Mission Beach.

We spent the next twelve years in Mission Beach and now twenty-one years later, my boys still talk about the fun they had on the trip.

Wonderful memories!

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Originally posted on Medium