Today is our last full day on the east coast. The skies have parted for the past few days and the flooding is receding in the areas around us. We still have full access to the airport, so we are flying out tomorrow for Adelaide, Melbourne and area. I am ready to move on now and see a new area.
We have been trying to catch up on the ‘to do list around Alstonville. We have stayed close to home this past week. Nathan was in a full week of swimming lessons in the next town and we had a bit of pool weather. We went to Thursday plantation the tea tree oil producer and today we are going to rent some bikes to ride along the river in Ballina.
We really feel like we were the last tourists to see Brisbane. I am sure glad we went when we did. The flood is starting to recede now and the news is of the destruction left behind and the cleanup crews. When we went to Brisbane, we got a chance to go to the Australia Zoo. This was a really great zoo! We are not really zoo people, but I really wanted to go to this one because it is the zoo Steve Irwin grew up in and ran. There were great crocodiles and lots of animals we wouldn’t see in the wild and good information on all of them. I want to see some old Crocodile Hunter again.
I prefer to see them in the wild and we have quite a list now. Lots of birds; laughing kookaburras, Lorikeets eating breakfast with us, rosela’s, wild turkeys, 3 colors of galahs, one that is more like a black parrot that is 4 feet long with the tail feathers, a frogsmouth, which looks like an owl, thousands of big fruit bats, blue headed wrens that like to tap on our window at 6 am, and magpies. We have been very lucky with the animals too. We have seen wallabies in our back yard, a wild boar, 2 emus, which I mentioned earlier, kangaroos, dolphins, dragon lizards, tree frogs and cane toads, around our pool that Nathan likes to ‘hunt for’ before bed. and now we saw 2 platapus. These we had been hunting for also. We have been going to Tucki Tucki creek in Platapus park. Sounds likely, but it is rare to see them at this time of year and with the high water it’s less likely. We made a last attempt last night and poof along came a platypus! There was a small group of ‘friends of the park’ gathering in the park and they told us it is ‘not a good time of year’ and the ‘high water’…. Then one of them spotted it. I was so excited. We would have thought it was a baby if the local experts weren’t there to tell us it was full size. It was fully only 1.5 feet long. Then along came another one before it got too dark. Wow 2 platapus! This was our last attempt as they only live on the east coast. Next a koala. We have a heads up on where to see koala’s in the wild for today, so fingers crossed.
Then packing and cleaning. I am not sure all our stuff will now fit!
We have been 'wingeing’ about the rain here changing our holiday plans of beach and pool time, but I feel very fortunate at this point. We have seen so much devastation on the news in most of Queensland and western New South Wales. A week ago the flood was an area the size of BC. We have watched about devastation through locusts in Victoria and South Australia, and bush fires in Western Australia. There has been no reprieve for Australia. It has become so heartbreaking to watch the whole country suffer through this tragedy.
The floods started 19 days ago. It was a huge flood and whole cities, like Rockhampton were flooded and numerous small towns were completely ruined. Australia had a big telethon to raise money a couple of nights ago and were documenting the waters receding in many areas. Well the flood has gotten much worse since then. Areas that had not been hit in southern Queensland and northern NSW are now getting the worst of it. There was an inland tsunami west of Brisbane and the footage has been so outrageous. This was a 8 meter wall of water. I can not comprehend even with the tv footage. There is a place west of Brisbane that is expecting a 22 meter peak tonight. The rain has not abated and a scientist was on the news talking about when you have this much water and the summer heat it evaporates and rains even more. Great!
Down river from the flash flood is Brisbane. Brisbane is built all along a snaking river. They are evacuating many, many suburbs right now. The grocery stores are empty and the highways are plugged. This is a once in 100 years flood.
We were in Brisbane, for a few nights, just 3 days ago. We stayed with a friend of my Mom’s and went out with her son and his family. We had a lovely time and spent a day on the BrisbaneRiver on the local transit ferry. The water was really high when we started but by the afternoon it had settled and our hosts didn’t seem to think there was going to be a problem there. Right now they predict the river and tides will meet to an extreme height tomorrow afternoon.
Our house is in the rolling hills and we will not get flooded, but we don’t know how the surrounding ‘shire’s’ will fair. The big rains are a bit inland of us, but the towns near us are low and on the river. There are rains predicted for the rest of our week. We feel extremely fortunate to not have gotten a home exchange in any of the flood area. We were trying for some of those towns that are now in trouble.
Well that is how it is here right now. We will hope to keep the power and see what is out there tomorrow when we head to Nathan’s swimming lesson. Indoor pool!
I am a bit behind on the blog, but must tell you about recent rather than past days to begin with. We have had 2 great days here in Alstonville. There have been others also, but the past 2 were a welcome change.
Yesterday, Sunday was a drizzly morning and we went out to the markets around the area. The first was called a car boot market and ranges from someone’s garage sale junk to crafts, imported stuff and local foods. There were lots of interesting things to poke along at. We bought some 'maccas', macadamians, and Nathan and I had a nice gluten free lasagna. Made with sliced butternut squash, mmm, it was a treat.
After that we headed out to ByronBay for their market and the beach. That was a big one. It is fairly hippy, but lots of good stuff to see. Great food there! There was a raw food booth and a great fresh smoothie place. Yummy! I am not really stocking up on ‘stuff’ so the food seems to be the highlight for me. Eating out has proved to be hard to stay within Nathan’s and my diet, but we try to keep it in perspective, but it is nice to have things that are specialty.
The clouds parted while we were there and we headed to the beach. We had a good hour or so there before the blue bottle jelly fish came around. Lots of people were getting stung and there was a steady stream of people at the life savers stand getting ice to lessen the sting. I don’t think it is too serious unless you are stung a lot, but I don’t want to find out. Nathan was interested in the sand more than the water anyway.
Today we changed it up and stayed home. We spent the day playing in the pool and around the house. We have not really used the pool yet. We were busy for the first few days and then the cool and heavy rains over Christmas flooded it and made it dirty. We got the pool cleaned up and checked by the pool people and then it got cool again. So today we took full advantage. I feel revived again, which is good, because there are rains forecast again.
We had rains start about the 23rd and it was a rain we rarely see so long and hard for so many days even in Squamish. We wanted to travel north into Queensland while we were here, but so much of Queensland is in bad flood conditions for the past week or more. Apparently it is hitting the news at home and it is an area the size of BC that is flooded. We feel extremely lucky to not have had a home exchange up there. It would be so tough to know what to do at someone else’s house. On the 27th we got cabin fever and packed for a few nights to head south. The weather looked marginally better that way, so we headed out. We really have lost the desire to drive anywhere. It would take us a month to get to Puerto Vallarta this year. We took 2 days to drive 41/2 hrs to Port Macquarie. We stayed in a nice town the first night called Woolgoolga. This place is a great beach, a colony of fruit bats and a busy local tavern that makes good food and is family friendly. It was still raining off and on so we headed further south. We found not only a dry place, but also a beautiful sunny day at the beach in ‘Port Mac’. It was worth it.
Along the drive we saw a wild boar and then 2 emu’s in the wild. I never dreamed I would see wild emu’s. They were a ways away in a sugarcane field, so the pictures aren’t good, but you know it’s an emu.
We went to the local showgrounds here in Alstonville for NYE. It was a family event, no alcohol and fireworks at . Lots of kid stuff to do, rides, music, fairy floss(cotton candy) and bouncy castles. There were predicted to be 3000 there, it was crazy to be in shorts and tee shirts on NYE watching fireworks.
I hear that the subscribe thing isn’t as easy as I thought. Just check every week of so if it doesn’t work to follow or subscribe. Thank you for all your emails, we really like getting them!
For those of you not on facebook here is the link to a few pictures, but I am much further behind on those. I am learning new software and can’t seem to make the time to edit all those photos we have taken. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=255092&id=554710811&l=b7cd9e8b6d
Happy 2011 everyone. May your sadness be less, your happiness more and nothing but blessings to come through your door.
We had fun getting ready for Christmas this year. It was all last minute because we didn't want to carry any extra thing around with us untill we got to our house exchange. Nathan had fun going shopping with each of us separatly to buy a few things for the other. He wanted to buy tom some funny things. He wanted to buy him a skateboard and sunglasses! If you end up in the skateboard section then that's what happens. He had fun wrapping presents and getting them under the tree and we thought he was so excited that he was going to be up early.
The morning was really weird! Nathan slept in until and then sat at the table and wanted toast. Ok…. we made toast and wished him a Merry Christmas. By the time he finished half of his toast we couldn’t handle it anymore and prompted him towards the tree. He was so excited and we had fun opening gifts. He was especially excited to give each of us our gifts.
He got some fun games and coloring to keep us all busy for the day and we had a strange smoked turkey breast for dinner. They tend to have more lamb and seafood for Christmas luch down here. We had a visit from a 5 year old up the street and his Dad in the early 'arvo' (afternoon) t invite us up for a drink. So we had a social outing as well. They knew we were coming because our hosts told them on Halloween and set it up. We were going to go up for a visit, but we wouldn't have gone over on 'Chrissy'( yes they really shorten Christmas to Chrissy).
