Internet? What internet?

One of the most frustrating things about living in a remote location is the lack of services that we normally take for granted 'down south'.
I had withdrawal pains from my regular shopping trips to Officeworks, Spotlight, Lincraft, The Reject Shop and others but discovered a love for online shopping.
Of course I had my personal shopper back in Mackay. A phone call, a bank transfer and our daughter had some much needed goodies in an express bag and sent to us the next day.

The one thing I find it hard to live without, that our personal shopper can't help us with, is the internet.
When we came to Saibai we brought a Wifi modem and a 3G iPad with us. For the first few weeks they both worked well but then the modem stopped working and a month later the iPad also had no service. A phone call to Telstra resulted in being told that they would replace the modem at the nearest Telstra shop. Well that happens to be in Cairns which is 900 kilometres and a $700 one way flight away.
We asked for a replacement to be mailed but they couldn't find Saibai Island in their computer so they sent it to Mackay.  Luckily our son put it in the mail for us. As it had a battery it couldn't come express and had to come by barge so three weeks later........

A trip back to Mackay the in September school holidays gave me a chance to get my "connection" issues sorted but the iPad still has limited access to the internet.

I miss not being able to go to the store and getting things fixed or replaced straight away.
So if you are wondering about there not being any posts for a large chunk of time, then blame it on the internet.