5^th 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.