He and his wife Delma were packing the 2000 model dual cab Holden Rodeo for their road trip from Tweed Heads to Laguna Quays (Whitsundays) to set up the Basil Sellers Laguna Quays Respite facility. This is the third such facility that Well-Being Australia provides for elite athletes. The other two are in Moruya on the NSW south coast and Tweed Heads on the north coast.
They needed to be in Laguna Quays by the 15th February as settlement was on the 16th and it was their task to do the pre-settlement inspection and then initiate setting the cottage up for rest and respite. They'd developed this highly specialised athlete respite ministry over 18 years from when the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra started utilising the Moruya facility "Basil Sellers House" from 1992.
He and Delma established that facility and over the next 14 years developed it into a functioning ministry and then at the end of 2005 relocated to Tweed Heads to establish Basil Sellers Tweed for SE Qld AIS elite athletes and the cricket fraternity – he'd been the Australian cricket team chaplain for 17 years retiring at the end of 2000 moving sideways to Life After Cricket.
As the Footplate Padre, with camera at the ready, they headed off 9.00am Sunday morning readying themselves for essentially two and a half days travel, moreover in Queensland, the main north railway line runs largely parallel to the highway, a railway photograph's dream. Sounds a lot like him folks ….. there was not one train they saw all day Sunday.
They stopped for the night at Miriam Vale where the railway station is behind the motel. The publican where he had dinner said there were 28 trains a day roar through. They didn't see one. Next morning off they went again, all the way to Mackay and not a train in sight.
They did see the Rockhampton Diesel Depot from a distance and a 1950's 1100 Class in its blue livery in a storage state.
Mackay to Bloomsbury again the track runs parallel to the highway and not a train. They even took a load of rubbish to the tip two days later and crossed the Bloomsbury level crossing and again not a train in sight. This was a full two and a half days on travel beside the railway line and they did not see a train.
His camera was crying out in despair. Who does he write to so as to complain?
Life is a bit like this sometimes he wrote in the Footplate Padre column. Remember the story of Jacob who worked for seven yars for his father-in-law to be so as to marry Rebekah his daughter only to find that on the night he was given Leah the elder daughter. Sometimes things don't quite turn out as we'd thought.
Read On Track - The Stringybark Express Museum & Heritage Park here: otrailnews.comfypage.com