Day 136 : And then there were two

Having said an emotional farewell to a mo-less Captain Paul Barham at Brisbane airport last night, Steve and I spent another day getting our hands dirty down at the Queensland Fire and Rescue Service Centre. The guys there have been incredible, fixing everything from Martha’s passenger door (which we haven’t been able to lock since late October, ssshhh) to changing a few of the wheels around to stop her bouncing away unnecessarily at any speed over 45mph.  Plus giving Martha a thorough clean to remove four weeks of red dust and grime from her exterior.  Legends!

We’re really short of time in New Zealand so need to hit the ground running if we’re to meet our target mileage and generate as much media interest as possible along the way. Our biggest hurdle will be NZs strict quarantine standards for importing vehicles. We’d learnt our lesson from Freemantle and were determined by the time we’d finished with Martha those pesky quarantine inspectors would want to eat their dinner off her bonnet!

After spending the morning in what felt like an episode of ‘How clean is your house?’, Kim and Aggie would be proud, Steve managed to convince a couple of bonza blokes from the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service to come down and do a mock inspection of Martha. A mock inspection is very very rare, we were really lucky they took time out of their day jobs to give us a consultation. The chaps pointed out a few areas that still needed a bit more attention but overall they were really impressed with the standard of cleaning.  Phew!

Then it was a case of putting the Martha jigsaw puzzle back together. 621 items in 18 boxes in what felt like an extreme game of pairs!

A huge thanks to David, Andrew and the two Keiths at Eagle Farm for preparing Martha for the journey ahead. You rock!

Paper point : the ATA Carnet and Carnet de Passage are two documents that have caused major headaches on Martha’s journey so far. They are frustrating sets of papers that can speed up your journey or stop it instantly in it’s tracks. For once, it was a piece of cake. The Australians being on top of their game gave us a nice big stamp with an even bigger smile. Not quite the 31 hours of fun and games at the Russian border.  Now will the Kiwi’s play ball ??

Goodbye Martha: After customs it was time to drop Martha off at the port, handing her over to the Port of Brisbane officials who promised to look after her until shipping.  We won’t see her now until Auckland (even though we will be on the same boat), will she be OK?  Will we be OK?  Do you ever get awful feeling when you’ve checked your luggage in at the airport and you hope it ends up on the same flight as you… see you in Auckland Martha.

Amy

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