What bad weather can do during a move!

This furniture removal job started at 9:30 am on a Thursday at the premises for a National Storage facility in Mansfield. It was to be delivered to a property in the country 23.5 km north of Miles. 

Things did not go well from the start. The loading was hampered by other people at the storage facility coming and going with their own goods for storage. We did our best and by 12:45 pm I was satisfied we had all the possessions on board, and they were loaded safe and secure. The drive to Toowoomba was uneventful but we had to

use 2nd gear to get up the range. The traffic around Toowoomba that day for some reason was unusually heavy. 

I might add here that it was raining, and the weather forecast was for continuing rain, for the next few days. 

We were relying on GPS navigation to find the property as it was outside town. We had to be on the Hookswood Pelham Road to get to the property. 

It was now 6:00 pm and we were receiving text messages from the customer wondering why we were taking so long. They did not realise it might be a 4-hour trip in a car but not so in a removal truck, fully loaded. By 7:30 pm the GPS said we were 2 minutes away. I should add at this point we are driving on a dirt road, and it is still raining. 

Well, the next thing we know, we are bogged to the axel. The road surface had become unstable because of the continual raining. I sent a text message to the customer to advise of the problem. They arranged for a nearby farmer to find us. Nothing could be done in the bad weather, not even the next day. I had to spend the weekend contacting other customers and cancelling their jobs which were lined up for the coming week. 

By Monday it had stopped raining and after a false start we were able to get a contractor to tow the truck to dry solid ground. 

Finally, we were within 100 metres of the house. So, I parked on the roadside and the boys, and I carried the load the rest of the way (unloading the furniture and whitegoods). I was not going to run the risk of getting bogged again on such wet soil and there being no properly formed roads here.  

The unloading took two hours, and we were never so glad to see that the back of the truck was empty. 

The customers were relieved that their furniture and possessions had been delivered safely in such trying circumstances. 

We were home on Tuesday morning, and I promised myself to be very shy, if dirt roads are mentioned next time. No more driving down wet dirt roads.