Transport hassles

We finally returned the hire car tonight. The company we're buying the car off have gave us a loan car until we return with the bankers cheque and pick up the car which we plan to do tomorrow. In fact we've been surprised how good they've been. The car we're buying is only cheap, yet they've been fantastic with us.

When we decided to buy the car the salesman drove us to the Queensland Transport Office and waited around while we attempted to get our driving licences transferred (we couldn't actually do it then in the end because we didn't have a proof of address with us). He's also had the car fitted with four new tyres. We explained that it would take a few days to get the money transferred from the UK so in the meantime he offered us a loan car, even though we told him we had a hire car. The car he's loaned us, a fairly new Mitsubishi Magna, is better than the car we've bought. That was on Monday and now it's Friday. He hasn't rang once to check up on us to see when we're coming in with the cheque. So all week we've had two cars, which has been a godsend. Next week is when it will start getting tricky.

The only problem with our new jobs is that twice a week Rach has to start at 6:30am. As the pre-school child care doesn't start until 7am that means that I'll have to, with Lauren, drive Rach to work to be there for 6:30 (20 minutes drive), drive back and drop Lauren off at school (another 20 minutes). Then drive back to take the car to Rach at work (20 minutes). Rach will then have to come out of work and take me to the ferry terminal so she has the car when she finishes work.

When she finished work she'll have to drive to pick Lauren up for school and then later drive all way back to near her work to pick me up from the ferry.

It's only twice a week that we'll have that hassle but I can't see it being long before we consider getting a second car. It just seems a waste of money having to buy a second car when we'll only really need it twice a week. Especially when we need to be saving our money for other importing things - like clearing our remaining credit card debt and saving up for a deposit on a house.

I'm sure we'll get used to it. It's quite hard at the moment because neither of us are morning people and as it's Winter here we're having to get up in the dark - and it's really cold in the morning. When the mornings start to get lighter earlier and the weather hots up again I'm sure it won't be a problem. We'll be up at the crack of dawn even on weekends like all good Queenslanders!

Anyway we both have Queensland driving licences now. We bought the maximum 5 year licence. See how confident we are that we're staying here!