Remember how I mentioned a few posts ago that I would be seeing Janet?
Well, Janet and I are both currently enduring record flooding in southern Queensland. Janet's town of Hervey Bay is now cut off from the rest of the world - she is, literally, marooned, islanded!
On the road this morning, I was nearly washed into a river - suddenly, the river raced across the road, slamming into my van! I just made it across before the road disappeared in a torrent of liquid mud!
And now I'm unable to move in any direction - all roads are closed. The Isis river is at least six feet above the road - the main highway that runs up the east coast. Me and hundreds of other motorists and truckies are turning this service station/truck stop into a makeshift camp ground. Truckies, mums and dads and kids and dogs - everyone wandering round in the rain. We have given up on shoes and raincoats - so much water, these items become pointless. We will be held here by the police for at least the next 24hours.
This is a natural disaster. My first flood! I've been trapped by bush fire, now water.
And Janet's dry house is so close, but she is unreachable, cut off from me by impassable swollen rivers, rising tide waters, relentless sheets of rain, rain, rain...
This land is a lesson. Drought ends in flood.
And as Janet has grimly reminded me, today we could have watched Australia lose the Ashes as well.
So much water, after so long dry.
Cally
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