The birds are shellshocked but we are fine.

Well it’s been a hairy night, but we have not sustained any damage. The wind is still howling through the tree tops and we are still getting a few heavy showers passing across. We have been outside tidying up, well Peter mostly.

Clean up Pete with is big muscles and fancy see through poncho.

 The radio this morning said that 203,000 homes in Queensland are without power and some of them will have to wait for some time to be reconnected. Telstra also has had major problems up north and the 000 numbers are not working, there are no phones, no internet connections etc in much of the northern areas of the state. So quite a few people are without outside communications.

 

  

Debri on the driveway. It doesn't look too bad in this picture.

 

Parts of Bundaberg, Brisbane, Maryborough and Gympie are underwater or going under. In fact all the towns from Cairns down have been affected in some way. Here on the Gold Coast, the rivers are up and areas of the hinterland have had up to 400 mls of rain in the last 24 to 36 hours. That is around 12 to 16 inches of rain. That’s a lot of water and it all has to go somewhere.

  

Debri under the trees by the carport.

 As for us we have got off surprisingly lightly. A large amount of small twigs and bark has been peeled off the gum trees and is now adorning the lawns and driveway. A few smaller branches have come off and one is reclining at the bottom of the pool. The pool is surprisingly clean, often the wind will deposit all sorts of leaves and stuff there.

The poor birds are sitting the trees looking very sad for themselves, very bedraggled and the tamer ones we feed daily are sitting there demanding some breakfast.

The television has just said that some windows have been broken by waves in a restaurant in Burleigh. It must be pretty wild down by the beach.

Mr Noah, we need your ark.

Well the weather has turned slightly nasty.  We had a tropical cyclone roaming round up north for a few days, and then it lost some of its intensity and became an ex-tropical cyclone. But instead of dying out, as these things are want to do, it has gained strength from the warm air around Australia and the moisture over the Coral Sea and although it hasn’t become a cyclone again, it is dragging warm moist air in from the ocean and dumping it on the coast.

Gladstone has been badly affected and Bundaberg is flooding badly now and is going to get much worse. These are times when the Bureau of Metorology site is kept open much of the time. Knowing what is going on is really important. Also, the local national radion station, the ABC, instead of having a national program has only local programs with constant news of the flooding along the coast.

This is the current warning list for Queensland. Pretty extensive.

Warnings current:

Ocean Wind Warning 1 (QLD),

Coastal Wind Warning 1 - East Coast (QLD),

Severe Weather Warning 1,

Severe Weather Warning 2,

Fire Weather Warning,

Severe Thunderstorm Warning (QLD),

Flood Warning - Fitzroy River (QLD),

Flood Warning - Burnett River (QLD),

Flood Warning - Kolan, Baffle, Boyne and Calliope Rivers (QLD),

Flood Warning - Coastal Rivers - South (QLD),

Flood Warning - Burrum River (QLD),

Flood Warning - Mary River (QLD),

Flood Warning - Sunshine Coast Rivers (QLD),

Flood Warning - Stanley & Brisbane above Wivenhoe Dam (QLD),

Flood Warning - Lockyer, Bremer, Warrill & Brisbane below Wivenhoe (QLD),

Flood Warning - Condamine-Balonne Rivers (QLD),

Flood Warning - Macintyre, Weir & Border Rivers (QLD),

Flood Warning Summary (QLD).

 This ‘weather event’ as they are calling it, has turned into a bad affair, with inches of rain falling right down the coast and causing serious flooding.

Big seas are pounding the coast.

  

 

 The Maranoa River breaks it banks at Mitchell, causing the worst flooding in the town's history. Picture: courtesy of Maranoa Regional Council Source: The Courier-Mail

 Here on the Gold Coast, our house sit is well above any flood level, if we flood then the rest of the city is under water, we are at the base of Mount Tamborine and in a slightly hilly area. We have also taken note of all the radio and television advice to get the house storm ready. So we are expecting lots more rain today and much higher winds.

Some places have had over 500 mils of rain in the last couple of days. That is half a meter! The run off from that is enormous. Also because of the low pressure there are storm surges working their way down the coast giving very high tides. The strong winds, averaging around 80 to 100 km an hour at their peaks are driving big seas too, so the beaches are having problems with erosion.



A flooded property at Lowmead north of Bundaberg. It later disappeared under floodwaters. PIC: Supplied


Here on the Gold Coast, so far we have only had about 100 mils, around 4 inches, but we expect the worst to be this afternoon and tonight.

Bagara, around Bundaberg has had tornados, power cuts are everywhere, and everyone is told to keep off the roads. The winds further north, around Gympie are still cyclonic, and that seems to be heading our way.

 

To give you an idea of how high these rivers get, many bridges will be underwater, and the rivers can be 5, 10, or 20 meters higher than normal.

“The Burnett River at Walla is currently around 22 metres, which is above the December 2010 flood (20.10 metres). A peak slightly above 22 metres is expected in the next few hours due to local runoff, with further rises expected during Monday and Tuesday.”  BOM site. To complicate matters, all the local dams are releasing water because they know there will be much more water flowing in over the next week or so.

So we are expecting a rather wild 24 hours to come. I'll keep you posted. Just in the last few minutes the rain has increa

More storms on the way.

Where we are on the Gold Coast was not severely hit by the storms yesterday, but Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast certainly took a pounding.

There is a good gallery of pictures on this link here at the Courier Mail newspaper. I can't find the embedding link to put in the pictures for this, so you will have to click on the link. There are reports of hail the size of golf balls in one place.

The Bureau of Meterology is copping some flack for not putting out enough storm warnings before the main storm hit late morning yesterday. But to be fair, they told us there would be bad storms. The other very good information source during storms is the ABC, our local station of the Australian Broadcasting Commission, (radio station) always have local people on hand day and night as long as severe weather is still likely. This is the link for the ABC, they also have some great pictures of lightning.

Last night they had Kelly Higgins-Devine on the ABC, and every half hour she was interviewing the Bureau of Meteorology, giving updates as to where the storms were, what was happening etc, and giving us up to the minute information. I think many people who don't listen to the radio these days won't know about that. The ABC runs this service in any place in Australia during any kind of  severe event, not only storms, but fires, hurricanes etc.

We only had 20 mls of rain here over the past  24 hours, not a lot, and it was generally gentle rain. The grass is happy though, it has greened up already. But they are forecasting more strong storms for us today, and the Gold Coast may get a few more than yesterday. Lets see what happens.

Flowers rain and sonnets

One of the lovely things about the home we are house sitting at the moment are the pot plants. The lady obviously has a love of cacti, and there are some large pots with some well established plants coming into flower.

Somehow cacti flowers are vibrant colours, nothing wishy washy about them, and when you get a pot full of them they are just beautiful.  Here is one pot by the pool, covered in lovely red flowers.

Another of the cacti is a bright orange flower. I took this side on, so its not looking down the throat of the plant, but you can see the size of the flower. Its very big. In one city in China I lived in, there were enormous cacti right down the centre of the road with massive flowers on that lasted for ages. I guess there are many different sorts.

This white one has just come out today. The sad thing is the flowers don't last very long on the plant.

Probably the most striking flower at the moment is the bougainvillea plant. The famous TV program Bourkes Backyard has a tip sheet on this flower. Our plant is absolutely smothered with flowers at the moment. Peter has moved some of the pots around, and with this sitting against the pool fence, it looks just lovely. Probably the biggest plant I have seen was at my sister in laws home, many years ago. It was the purple coloured one, and the plant was about 20 years old, and went from the house to the garage. It was a massive plant and absolutely fabulous when in full flower.

I wrote earlier about the mango trees on this section, and the flowers are changing now into the baby mangos. I took a photo today and you can see the baby mangos forming. Not every flower becomes a mango, and during the next couple of months as they develop many of them will drop off, leaving a few to become mature fruit. If we are still in this house when they are ripe, I will enjoy eating my fill of them, mangos are one of my favourite fruits.

 

The last picture for today are some jacaranda trees. Peter and I went into Brisbane on Thursday and took the train. Driving in the city centre is a bit stressful when you don't know where you are going, so the train is the best way, it's cheap and not held up by traffic on the motorway.

One of the best things was looking at all the jacaranda trees in flower on the way in. I was a bit slow with my camera, so missed some of the really good trees, but right along the track, these beautiful purple flowers are everywhere. There is a park in the city called New Farm Park, it is by the river and at this time of the year is just fabulous with all the jacaranda trees, then when the flowers fall the ground is covered with them.

And as I sit and write this it is raining. Well, it is a bit of an apology for rain really, I don't think the concrete is even properly wet, but there is a bit of a shower around. I looked at the Brisbane weather radar and they are having a lovely thunderstorm up there, so they will be getting a good shower hopefully. Its hard to believe that people, me in particular, can get so excited about a bit of rain. But we have had the driest October on record,and when you live in a country like Australia, which can be dry for months on end, seeing a bit of rain can be so so exciting......

Acutally quite some time ago I wrote a couple of sonnets about drought and rain, I'll put them up now. I have copied and pasted them and the font is different. I hope you enjoy them.


 

Sonnet to Australia’s drought

 

The earth is red it’s dry and dead and bare

For years and years this place has been my home

In silence sits the snake who tastes the air

A ‘roo expires, exhales its final groan.

 

The hawks and eagles glide above on high

For them they see an endless fine food fest

No bush no tree no spinifix they spy

The earth has opened wide its jaws in death.

 

With utter desolation all around

Relentless heat, despair is all we know

No cloud no rain ho hope is to be found

Oh earth! Ope’ wide I’m coming down below.

 

I’ve slaved I’ve worked I’ve really done my best

But now I’m beat.  I lay me down to rest.

 

 

Sweet tears

 

I see on the horizon one small cloud

It’s fluffy, white, the first I’ve seen for years

The baked dry earth looks up and clamors loud

Oh! Send me please a few of your sweet tears.

 

I see on the horizon come more clouds

A tiny ray of hope is in my heart

I bow I kneel I pray with voice aloud

Oh! Send me please a few of your sweet tears.

 

I see on the horizon big dark clouds

A distant rumble clear assails my ears

With bated breath in hope the whole earth bows

Oh! Send me please a few of your sweet tears.

 

I jump for joy I cry, release my fears

At last I taste the wond’rous clouds sweet tears. 

I live to tell another tale. And it rained!!!

Haha, okay I made it through the night and survived. I am stiff and sore but happy.

Anyway the most exciting thing that happened is that it rained! After living n New Zealand for most of my life, and being used to it raining a great deal, coming here to this often drought ridden land, having rain is a very exciting event.

When we first moved to Australia we lived in a town called Bundaberg.  Let me digress for a minute...I will go completely off subject.  When we lived in Bundaberg I tried to find out why it was given that name. It was  a funny name for a town. No one knew why Bundaberg was called Bundaberg.

In New Zealand, many towns have Maori  names and we usually knew why they were called that name, or it was easy to find out, you just asked someone. I lived in Te  Awamutu. That town was at the junction of two smaller rivers and it was as far as the Maori could go in their canoes, so they made camp there and eventually it became a town over the years. It means the end of the journey. Perfectly sensible. Another town  I lived in was Paraparaumu. It means dirty dirty oven. Apparently it was known for something to do with dirty ovens. Next to Paraparumu was Paekakariki. (Said pie kok a ree kee). It means the place where the parakeets flew. Apparently there used to be cockatoos or parakeets on Kapiti Island and all around there in the past. And the English names were usually after famous people in NZ history.

Anyway, no one knew about  Bundaberg. It took me four years and a great deal of asking to find out that it meant the town of the Bunda people. It seems the local Aborigine tribe were the Bunda people, and a man who lived there as the town was forming was a German man. In Germany, berg means town, or similar. So he called it the town of the Bunda people, or Bundaberg.  Once I heard that it made sense.

Okay, back to the rain. When we lived in Bundaberg, generally shortened to Bundy, (where the Bundy rum is made) it didn't rain very often, but when it did, it poured. The towns in the north of Aussie are built with concrete channels all around the towns to take away water quickly. So often it would rain just a few times a year, but they would be downpours that might last a couple of days. Or with the tropical weather, in the summer storms would often go over in the afternoons and drop a heap of rain in just a few minutes then the clouds would waltz out to sea and the sun would be back. So we would stand on the veranda, ooohhing and aahhhing that it was raining.

Well, we have been about six or seven weeks here without rain and it was getting really dry. The lawn grasses around here are just amazing. If you don't water them, they just die,they go brown, and crunchy. If they go without water for long enough, the grass more or less disappears and you have dry ground. But when it rains, the grass is back in a few days. It is truly amazing! You can almost see the grass grow.

Well, over the past few weeks our grass at this house sit has got browner and browner, and some of the trees and shrubs were looking very sad. (We had checked with the owner, but he said not to worry, don't water the trees, all will be well when it rains.)  Then on Monday night we got about 26 mils of rain and yesterday a bit more. Overnight, the grass has  become green.

Aussie is full of frogs during the summer. This little critter is on the outside of the kitchen window in one of our New South Wales house sits.


 The frogs are coming out, a sure sign summer is on the way, and the trees and shrubs have perked up. October and November are storm months around here, so often afternoon storms roll over and drop a good soaking rain before they head seaward. Our weather generally comes from the hot inland during the summer, humidity and heat builds up for storms.

This picture is not our current house sit, but one in New South Wales. I took this during a thunder storm. You can see the heavy rain bouncing on top of the tank, and it is pouring out of the top by the white pipe and running down the sides of the tank.


Anyway, it has rained, I have lived through two sessions at the gym, we have some friends coming for lunch and all is okay.