My first stop off up the East Coast was at the holiday town of Coffs Harbour. I’ve got to say I really liked it there and found lots of activities that could keep me entertained for a few days, most notably diving in the Similian Islands and kayaking up Coffs Creek. It’s a great little place to break up the journey from Sydney to the Gold Coast, and one which I may return to in the future. Unfortunately the unrepentant rainfall gave me little reason to hang around, so I left for Surfer’s Paradise
I got to Surfer’s, but made the daft mistake of not booking accommodation in advance. It was gone 11pm when the bus pulled in, and I’d been ringing around during the day in order to source out an available hostel, but found no reward for my efforts. Instead I figured I could rock up to one of the abundance of motels and book in there for a slightly more expensive night. Well that phrase “slightly more expensive night” was certainly not applicable to me! With the blaze of ‘No Vacancy’ neon plastered everywhere as holiday makers had arrived in their hoards, due to the lack of options for a break in Queensland (an area the size of France plus Germany was flooded), I was pretty much stuck. With my low level of effort, I only tried a couple of places without joy, before giving up and checking in to a slightly better class of hotel. At $230 for the night (about £140), I really did treat myself to one of the best rooms I’d ever stayed in, but at that price, I could only stay for one night. I’d managed to get a modest hostel for the 2nd night at $32, and so did little else other than drink in SP. To be fair, there wasn’t anything else to do. The rain was thrashing down constantly taking away the option of surfing from me. I left SP bound for Brisbane after that.
Was choosing Brisbane a good move? Errrmmm anyone watching the news recently will know it probably wasn’t. I stayed with my good friend Rob, from university days, and his wife Kay for a night and it was great to catch up and hear some really good news from him (Kay is expecting in May). We had some lunch in a pub attempting to be British-styled, but the really bad beers, quite typical of Australia, made sure it was a failed attempt. I spent the rest of the day having a look around Brisbane, as last time I was here, Rob took me camping in the Great Diving Range (that was a great weekend!) which left me no time to see the city itself.
For the next day, Kay dropped me off at Roma St Station and I caught my bus bound for the Australia Zoo, but given the weather, it was always going to be touch and go. We got there to find the staff ankle deep in flood water, and the zoo closed. We had to turn back to the city. This was annoying for me as I was supposed to get to Maroochydore and do some diving the next day, with hindsight it turned out to be a blessing; I would have been trapped! That said I was trapped! In the short time we’d got to the zoo and turned around, a creek we’d crossed over had risen and flooded the road. The Bruce Highway was also impossible to drive on, so with nowhere to go, we had to turn the engine off and sit and wait until low tide and the water going down. I went with a couple of girls from Blackburn to the nearest service station to get some food for the long wait ahead. When we got there, we saw the almost bare shelves being snatched at for the last packets of crisps. I got a few bits and joined the thirty minute long queue which circled the interior of the shop! Talk about panic buying, one girl even bought a packet of tampons; my guess said it wasn’t even that time, it was just in case we were sat there for a few days! That got a chuckle from the NW girls.
Well I got through it and now I’m back in Brisbane. Maroochydore was impossible to get to, and probably dangerous as well, so I booked a flight to Airlie instead where I can continue on my route and dive the Great Barrier Reef and shipwrecks all the way to Cairns. I didn’t want to worry or trouble Rob again with everything he had going on (Brisbane city was flooded and causing chaos with road closures, and building flooded, so I booked into a hostel where I could lounge by the pool and get pissed. There was quite literally nothing else to do. I did get a look at the city though, and the pub where I’d had lunch with Rob was now closed and barricaded by heaps of sandbags. The roads I’d walked were about a metre or so under water; and as for the river, well you couldn’t even see the walkway that I’d used just two days before. A boat floated by, unmanned and wrecked, and this was becoming a disturbingly common sight. I really got disheartened when pieces of houses started drifting by.
Brisbane is like a ghost town at the moment, without next to no traffic flow, and everything closed and boarded up. It’s so quiet, that even the people walking around are too depressed and anxious to speak. In fact the only sounds you really hear are the occasional siren from police cars, fire brigade trucks, and ambulances; failing that, the news team’s helicopters wisp by to report the devastation globally. I’ve found a great hostel to be in, but it’s a bad time to be here. Maybe I won’t stick up the accompanying photos this time.
Lastly, I’ve given to the relief appeal, and I would actively encourage others to donate too. Australian’s do come together very well to help their people, so please at least consider a donation of some note. At time of writing 15 are dead and 89 are missing, and it isn’t looking too favourable for those missing. It’s mainly from small towns where the people now have next to nothing left. I hate pestering, but this is my way of doing my little bit to the cause. Sorry if I sound like I’m preaching.
P.S. to Will and Meds if reading - I see Everton have crept above Liverpool, and little Kenny lost to Blackpool...... hmmm....... After Sunday, I think our little bit will favour me again *cheeky smile*
No comments:
Post a Comment