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National

Road train and choppers deliver click-and-collect groceries 540km to NT station cut off by flooding

When you pick up a click-and-collect order from the supermarket, it is usually a brief affair.

But for one family in outback Australia, it has taken a road train, a helicopter and a team of people across hundreds of kilometres in Queensland and the Northern Territory to get their hands on their groceries.

Danielle Doyle and her family run Mittiebah Station near the Northern Territory-Queensland border.

But their nearest town is Mount Isa, about 500 kilometres east, in Queensland.

It means Ms Doyle bulk-buys groceries several times a year.

Flooding rains isolate station

When the NT's strong wet season inundated the roads around Mittiebah Station recently, supplies from October's grocery run had started to dwindle.

"When it rains, the only way out of our station is by a chopper or a plane," Ms Doyle said.

"But we don't have a set of wings."

In a show of good old fashioned Aussie spirit, Ms Doyle's neighbours swooped in and ensured one of the most well-travelled grocery orders was delivered safely to her front porch.

"Everyone, from the truck drivers to our neighbouring stations to the chopper pilot, they're all just fantastic," Ms Doyle said.

A long journey

The milk and bread Ms Doyle unpacked in her kitchen the other day had travelled a passport-worthy distance of 540 kilometres across Queensland and the NT.

The week-long journey started when she ordered her groceries from the Mount Isa supermarket on a Friday.

Her order was picked up the following Tuesday by a road train and driven 310km west along the Barkly Highway to Soudan Station in the NT.

A helicopter from Alexandria Station, just south of Ms Doyle's Mittiebah Station, then flew about 115km to Soudan Station to collect the groceries before returning to Mittiebah Station to finally drop them off.

While it appeared to be a jaw-dropping effort, Ms Doyle said this was "the way things are in the bush".

"When the chopper landed here the other day, I was thinking, 'This is normal for us, but the people in the cities probably don't realise what it takes to get an order to us way out here in the middle of nowhere'," she said.

As for what makes the grocery list, Ms Doyle said she had to "keep it simple."

"I tried not to order too many frozen or cold things because I didn't really know how long it was going to be. I order basics like UHT [ultra heat treated] milk, UHT cream, mainly dry stores."

But there is one item on the list that Ms Doyle, in her 15 years running the station, has always feared running out of.

"I've been panic buying toilet paper since 2008," she said.

"It is my biggest fear, running out of toilet paper, so I always make sure that is on hand."

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