5th Feb 2013
A month gone in the New Year already, time
gets away on you so easily.
Australia is a beautiful country but it can
be harsh and cruel as well and it almost seems to be a pattern that we are
reminded of this each year during January and particularly the Australia Day
long weekend
Two years ago when Nancy and I were
caravanning in South Australia the eastern states, in particular Queensland,
experienced devastating floods. Brisbane was inundated which was something we
didn’t think would happen again following the building of Wivenhoe Dam in the
late 70’s. Wivenhoe was built as a result of the devastating floods that
inundated Brisbane and Ipswich in January 1974 and although it is one of the
main sources for Brisbane water supply it was actually built primarily for
flood mitigation.
Here we are two years later and half of Australia
has been on fire for weeks with raging bushfires throughout Victoria, South
Australia and New South Wales and at one stage every state had fires burning
somewhere, with horrendous loss of property, stock and even human life.
Then to top all this off a cyclone formed
in North Queensland generating flash flooding in the north and although the
cyclone theoretically petered out a spin off from this (excuse the pun) was a tornado
that formed in the south and in conjunction with a rain depression created
severe flooding throughout Queensland.
Major centres such as Rockhampton and
Bundaberg experienced record floods, in fact Bundaberg had the highest flood
ever recorded. Brisbane, Ipswich and the rural Brisbane Valley regions all
suffered flooding but fortunately not to the same devastating degree as two
years ago. Brisbane Valley, Lockyer area known as Brisbane’s food bowl was once
again inundated, so we can expect a shortage of fresh produce down the track.
Living where we are, we normally enjoy
cooling bay breezes during hot weather however being exposed directly to a full
on tornado blast across Moreton Bay is a bit beyond bay breezes. The wind just
roared you couldn’t see through the front windows for the driving rain, leaves
and debris from the two huge gum trees in the park across the road that thrashed
against the windows intermixed with cannon like bangs as larger pieces of tree
debris crashed against the glass bi-fold doors it was quite un-nerving at times
particularly during the night when you can’t see outside anyway and sounds seem
to amplify, as you can image no one got much in the way of sleep. However the
house felt solid and safe and at most just trembled a little compared to
neighbours who weren’t sure if their homes were going to survive.
Due to the long relatively dry spell we
have experienced in the past five months or more, the trees in the park were
stressing and at the start of the blow we were showered with truck loads of
dead Eucalyptus leaves, this was then followed by dead branches and green twigs
and leaves and branches as the wind velocity increased. Across in the park the
sea pushed up by the strong wind came two thirds of the way across during high
tide and didn’t want to go back until the wind abated and then it receded
rapidly. For a while I thought we might end up with an exclusive waterfront
property, but we are quite happy with how it is.
As soon as the rain let up and wind eased everyone
was out in force dragging tree branches off the road and raking smaller
branches and truck loads of leaves off the road and out of flooded gutters onto
the grass roadside verge, where over the next few days council came around and
chain-sawed all the larger fallen limbs and cleaned up all the other tree
debris.
As for us we hadn’t sustained any
structural damage but the house had turned from a beautiful crisp white to a
dirty rusty brown colour a result of the constant lashing of rain impregnated
with Eucalyptus sap from the gum trees. We tried all sorts of methods and
chemicals to remove the stain receiving advice from paint representatives, the
builder, painter, internet and even rang the paint manufacturers but none of
their suggestions worked and eventually our good neighbour John arrived with
two drums of strong truck wash, so we found by trial that un-diluted truck wash
removed the stain if you scrubbed hard and we scrubbed every inch of the front
of the house top to bottom, garden walls, garage doors, and portal entry,
sometimes two or three times before it would completely come off. I must admit
with the heat and humidity heat exhaustion soon caught up with me and I was
forced to take on less strenuous tasks, thank goodness for John and our Lisa
who worked like a Trojan and at times like a circus acrobat balancing on step
ladders etc to reach high spots. Hosing off the scrubbed sections it looked
like tea running down the driveway, unfortunately with my focus on getting the
stain removed before it did permanent damage I overlooked to take photos.
Our car didn’t escape either, with our
caravan gear still taking up precious room in the garage the Toyota was last
one to be parked so consequently was left outside in the driveway, the bonnet
and left hand mudguard now have a coating of brown sap stain that I am having
great difficulty removing and even the polished alloy bull-bar turned to a
bronze colour.
We also may have lost a lot of the new
shrubs we had recently planted, I say may because they have turned brown from windburn
and although it’s doubtful, they may survive. Even the Pandanus Palm that is a
waterfront tree suffered severely but should be ok. Across in the park all the
trees that still have foliage have turned brown through wind burn and the
massive old gum directly across the road has been fenced off with safety tape
after being inspected by a Arborist, wonder what is happening with that.
We have put up a small shed in the back
garden for all our gardening needs and a couple of bikes plus quite a bit of
surplus fishing gear, a stack of collapsible crab pots that I hope to get some
use of once we return from our trip.
During week I spent a couple of days
preparing and constructing a shed base out of large treated pine sleepers so we
shouldn’t have any hassles with white ants. The shed arrived as a flat pack
reminiscent of Ikea so that took another day of assembling all the parts and on
Saturday Lisa, Nancy and I constructed “the shed”. It’s only three metres by
two point three metres but looks large in our back garden and with a couple of
sturdy shelving units Lisa assembled we have been able to place a lot of items
in there and tidy up around the house, wheel barrow, two mowers, whipper snipper,
bikes garden tools, chemicals etc,etc and it’s locked.
Sunday was taken up socialising but
yesterday (Monday) I spent the day re-arranging caravan gear that is still in
the garage and last night we actually got two cars comfortably in the garage
for the first time.
Our travel departure date was to have been
the start of February and is now targeted to be early March, we have to all
intense and purposes signed the last of the documents for the Trust we are
setting up for David so that must be close to being finalised, that combined
with floods and bushfires we thought it prudent to delay for a month. Even so
it’s going to be a last minute rush getting things ready, there are certain
things you cant do until the last minute and one draw back is having the
caravan in storage several kilometres away and only accessible during office
hours.
Looking out of my study window I notice it
is trying hard to rain and has certainly turned to a pleasant coolness for a
change.
I hope our good friends in the northern
hemisphere are not suffering too much from the cold, Miriam has had very cold
weather in London and Reni is digging out heaps of snow in Switzerland. Take
care and big hugs to all of you.
