ROB DRIVES TO THE RESCUE
HERE’S a plug for the RACQ. I did a fuel pump 40km north of Marlborough last week. Luckily I had network and could phone the organisation our parents always told us to join when we were teenagers. At the time we’d say, “yeah, yeah” while thinking “yeah, right”. But, we joined, or at least most of us did. The people on the other end of the line in Brisbane at about 5.40am were more than helpful and set the wheels for my recovery in motion, metaphorically speaking.
Rob, the owner of the nearest RACQ accredited garage at Carmila phoned me back. I was outside a deserted roadhouse and ‘antique’ shop at a place called Tooloombah Creek. Whoever thought it was a good idea to open an antique shop and store at Tooloombah Creek on the ‘Marlborough Stretch’ 117km south of Carmila deserves a gold plated pen and pencil set for optimism.
This was one of several deserted buildings – once roadhouses – that you see these days along the Bruce Highway’s ‘Marlborough Stretch’ between Rockhampton and Sarina. They look for all the world like those abandoned buildings you see in films depicting post-apocalyptic desertion; graffitied walls, grass growing up through bitumen driveways, loose boards banging in the wind.
We all grew up with the ‘Marlborough Stretch’ or ‘Crystal Highway’ as it was also known in the days before reinforced glass windscreens came into being. The nickname came from the regular piles of glass alongside the road where motorists had bashed out shattered windscreens. It was also known as the ‘ Horror Highway’. Remember the Funnel Creek murders on the old section of highway between Sarina and Marlborough? Two bodies wrapped in weighted wire netting were recovered from the creek. And then Noel and Sophia Weckert from Townsville were murdered in 1975 while on their way to a skydiving event at Emu Park. Mr Weckert was shot while he sat at the wheel of his car at a Connors River rest stop. Ms Weckert was abducted. Her body was later found 30km to the north.
Back to the story. Rob was there in 90 minutes. Pretty amazing. I’d been preparing myself for a three to four hour wait.
Rob told me when he arrived that “I was just getting out of bed when the despatcher called. I had a shower, went to the shed picked up the truck and came straight down.” This was working out fine.
And then it dawned on me that when I got to Carmila I would have to get from there to Mackay, 87km to the north. The RACQ would get my vehicle home on a truck from Carmila. Meanwhile, it was looking at flights for me out of Mackay.
I mentioned this problem to Rob and he told me it was my lucky day as after he dropped my vehicle off at the garage he then had another job up the Sarina Range where he had to pick up a vehicle and take it to the Mercedes dealership in Mackay. I could stay in the truck with him and he would drop me at the airport after he’d done the drop. Sweet.
The only other alternative was to book into the Carmila pub and catch the 6am bus to Mackay the following morning. Rob did tell me that it was darts night at the pub and there was a chance I could pick up $50. I knew I had as much chance of picking up $50 at the Carmila pub’s darts night as I had of picking the Melbourne Cup winner. And from what the super-efficient RACQ people were telling me on the phone, all of the flights the next day were via Brisbane. I did the Sarina Range Cook’s tour with Rob and was at the Mackay airport at midday and boarding a plane home at 6pm, courtesy of the RACQ.
Then there was the cost of getting the vehicle home on the back of a car
carrier; all taken care of, f once again courtesy of the RACQ. Thanks RACQ and thanks dad for always haranguing me all those decades ago about always being in the Royal Automobile Club of Queensland.
SITTING PRETTY
ROSS Palmer, his partner Susie Dixon and the Dixon brothers, David and Gary are the new management contractors at the Charters Tower saleyards (pictured left).
This follows the departure of Ron and Leanne Phillipson who have moved on to new challenges.
Charters Towers Mayor Frank Beveridge sang the praises of the Phillipsons when I spoke to him this week, but at the same time he is confident that Mr Palmer and the Dixons will keep them doggies rollin’. Talks are in train for an expansion at the yards, which so far this year have processed 273,000 head of cattle, 24,000 more than the previous highest number.
The Towers has now overtaken Gracemere near Rockhampton as a beef cattle selling centre.
With cattle prices at an all-time high, the Towers is sitting pretty.
Mr Palmer and David Dixon said this week they were keen to provide the best service possible to the northern grazing industry.