Tuesday 28 May 2013

Second uplift arrives!

Teacher's belongings are transported, or "uplifted", at the expense of Education Queensland when relocating to the Torres Strait.  A family gets 30m3 (1 container) of furniture, clothing, food & personal belongings transported when first relocating, then we can apply for a "second uplift" for essential items not included in the first uplift.  We were lucky enough to have our second uplift approved for the transport of our boat - we bought it in Brisbane when we returned for the Easter holidays.  We then filled the boat with newly purchased camping gear, fishing stuff, a few clothing items, toiletries, gardening gear & lots & lots of groceries!

We packed everything into the boat & strapped it all down with a boat cover.  It was picked up by the transporters in Brisbane in the last week of April...but didn't arrive here till the 27th May- 1 month later!  It got as far as Cairns, then the transporter company called us to say they would not transport the boat with it's contents, they would send the boat empty & send the contents separately... 

The contents actually beat the boat, arriving here on the 22nd May.  There was a mountain of unpacking to do...groceries that wouldn't fit in the pantry...an overflow of nappies...new camping gear to store...it was just like Christmas!  We really made good use of the chance to ship groceries for free - I had bought about $1000 worth of dry goods from Coles & Woolies while back in Brisbane - so we won't need to do an online grocery order for quite some time!!  Highly recommended!

7 packs of nappies & 1 of wipes - yoo hoo!   
2 boxes of toiletries...
Some of the stuff that won't fit in the kitchen cupboards - it lives in a box on top of the pantry!
Atop another kitchen cabinet - more dry goods that won't fit in.  There are 4 drawers full of food in Milly's bedroom too!

P.S. I have 21 boxes of cereal in my kitchen at present!  Happy days.