Back home...and after the floods

 

anxiously watching the Brisbane sky line
the morning we left
Tuesday, Jan 11th





 We're home from our holiday to New Zealand and what a few weeks it's been...

Floods have ravaged parts of Queensland including our home city of Brisbane and have destroyed homes, businesses and lives. Brisbane city centre was evacuated alongside many riverside suburbs. The mud and debris lingered after the water fell and the clean up will take months. There is an estimated cost of hundreds of millions of dollars - up to $100 million just to get the river city cat transport back together.

This hurts.

If anyone reading this was affected in any way - I am truly sorry...

Brisbane is muddy, smelly and gritty...but Australians are from strong stock!

With pioneer (or convict?) ancestors this city will fight its way back quickly.

Living in a suburb that was thankfully unaffected by the water everyone that I talk to has a story to tell about how they have been volunteering to help with the aftermath. Nana and Papa (who were housitting whilst visiting from England) volunteered and went to an affected suburb to help clear mud; brother and sister in law came down the mountain and did the same; other brother in law travelled an hour and a half from the Sunshine Coast to help. Neighbours and friends who couldn't get to work in the city queued to offer their time or travelled around with trailers to help move things...People are amazing.

So as much as we enjoyed our holiday, there was a regular niggling worry about what was happening back in Brissie. Internet and mobile access in the remote hills of North New Zealand was patchy to say the least! We caught up when we could but mostly got our news fix the old fashioned way...with newspapers.

Thank you to everyone who sent messages, texts, emails, phoned my mum! to check on us. Diolch.

We escaped - in more ways than one!

I will write about our travels next time.

 Queensland Gov flood donations - click here