We survived the cyclone. The house survived the cyclone. D&M are ok, as are A&P&L. No damage to D&M and A&P&L have a live power line, power pole and heaps of fallen trees on their property. No damage to the house apart from a wet carpet.
But it was a wild ride! I spent most of the night looking out of the windows listening to the wind howl and whistle and feeling the house shake. Frightening and thrilling at the same time. The power lines did so much dancing about it is a wonder the ones in our street stayed connected. Many didn't. We lost power about 11.30 last night and it is still off. The storm is still raging outside in a milder form and the rain is just bucketing down. We have water inside downstairs as happened after the floods. The pool, which had 12 inches of free space after we drained it yesterday, has overflowed, filled with mud and has one fallen palm tree and the top of next doors cow tucker tree in it. There are leaves and debris everywhere. Our pool shed survived as did all our plants minus one palm. Amazing stuff. We have no TV so don't know what is happening out there. Our radio broke when someone dropped it in the dark. We have internet when we need it thanks to the UPS but it is going off after this post to conserve the battery.

The wind and rain started to pick up aroud 4 or 5 yesterday afternoon.

KISA prepared for the cyclone as any IT Geek would...downloading Microsoft MSDN

and listening to music on his media centre. All the deck furniture in the kitchen, dining,

And lounge rooms!

The cyclone hit around 1.40am this morning so no photos due to the dark. This is the deck at first light. Rarely gets wet, this morning there was not an inch of dry spot.

The pool, some work here once we have power and no rain.

Still raining buckets, the ground was sodden before it all started. Next door lost his tent thing, can't believe he didn't dismantle it. Sandbagged front door. Kept most of the driven rain out.

We will check on the unit when it is safe to venture out. They are advising everyone to stay inside as fallen power lines are everywhere. Will post more photos after an excursion.

It has started.

Well it is nearly 10pm and we have finished getting ready. All the outdoor stuff is inside and the wind and rain is really lashing the house. Once the red section hits it will sound like a steam train is in the house. Power is still on thank goodness. Don't think I will be able to sleep much. KISA is already asleep, nice to be a man!!

Battening Down

Cyclone Ulili is on her way. We got up early this morning and went to the harbour and filled up ten sand bags we got from Bunnings. These went across the pool where the water gets in and across the back garage door at the unit which seems to leak. Also across the front and back doors as we are expecting torrential rain with destructive winds.
We drained the pool as far as we could and brought all the outside stuff inside. We took my car to the garage at the unit and cleared a space for Daves in the shed. We picked up 3 x 20 litre water containers and our torches etc plus a tarp, some ratchet straps and some rope from our camping gear stored at the unit. We also brought the car fridge and the spare 12 volt battery unit back to the house. I had already stocked up on non perishable food, so we are all set. We are charging all the stuff that needs charging, so now we just wait for the fun to start! It is windy and stormy looking but nothing out of the ordinary yet.
Will keep you posted...

Weekend Jaunt up the Road

We went for a little drive up the coast on the weekend, to Townsville. We needed to put about a thousand clicks on the speedo so we wouldn't have to pay tax on our lease (complicated) so on Saturday we got up bright and early, picked up Macca's drive through breakfast and hit the road.
We arrived in Townsville about 11.15 or so and went looking at spas. At the first shop, we noted the stock floor was empty and we were told they were all at the Home Expo at the showgrounds. So we went there, as everything we were hoping to look at was displaying there in one spot. How convenient! And lots of campers and gear as well..At about 2pm it started to rain so we headed for the accomodation we had booked on wotif.com. We were very happy with Seagulls Resort.
We went for a walk alongside the beach and then relaxed till dinner which we had in the resort's restaurant. The gardens and surroundings are lovely and at night lit with oil torches and fairy lights.
We had a very enjoyable meal as well. KISA had battered fish, chips and salad, and I had a seafood risotto. We started with sharing some spring rolls, washed down with a bottle of Merlot. Tres civilised!

"Someone" forgot the camera and we had to use KISA's phone camera so the quality is not up to the usual standard.

KISA found this bit of stuff at the bar. Apparently she is quite a fixture!

After a good nights sleep in a surprisingly comfy bed (you do take your chances in hotels sometimes) we took ourselves up to Castle Hill for a look around. Mackay doesn't have anything nearly this high. Quite giddy making really!

You will note the beard has been drastically trimmed. He was starting to look quite colonial!

Looking north, this was the only sunlight we saw all day. It pretty much rained the rest of the day once we got closer to home.

KISA on the westward side. Never realised what a big place Townsville was till you look at it from this perspective. Castle Hill appears to be one big pink granite rock!

We headed home afterwards and arrived about 1ish. We had a lazy afternoon, listening to the rain on the roof!

Escaped at last!

Well after six weeks of staying at home on the weekends to show the house and clean it and because it was raining and rainig, we had had enough and decided to get out of town for the day. So we decided to do a progressive bushwalk.
So we packed a couple of sandwiches and yoghurt and water and headed up to Eungella. The countryside was so green it hurt our eyes!
After checking out the dam, which was very full, even our campsite was under water, we headed back to Broken River and did the rainforest circuit. Only about 45 minute stroll. The river was flowing higher than I remember it for a long time. This is the crossing leading to the walk to the sky window, about a 2 hour walk once you get across the river. Looking upstream

and downstream.

Well the bridge wasn't that far under! But the water was really moving and with the algae it looked slippery.

Last time we were here we went on those rocks in the middle of the river. They are almost under water now.

The understory was cooler and moist.

Nice day for a stroll.

Some of the lovely big old trees in the rainforest.

And a little stream.

We had our lunch in the picnic grounds with one of the locals.

We then headed back down the mountain. It was a crisp clear day, hot, but without the usual humidity haze that hangs around.

Even the roadside waterfalls were running hard, we don't see this very often lately.

We headed off to Cape Hillsborough to do the hill climb to the lookout and then to Andrews Point.

Looking over Wedge Island, you can see the islands very clearly it was so clear.

I chickened out of the longer walk. Saw too many snakes on the way up and was spooked.

Rain, Rain, rain

It seems to have beeen raining forever. We had another open house on Saturday, and we couldn't mow the lawn as it was raining. We had to show it with a dirty pool too as it wouldn't stop raining long enough to treat the water to make it clear again.

It is getting very frustrating. While the house was open KISA and I had a coffee at the Eimeo pub. We just got it down before getting rained on.

A drive out to the harbour yesterday after we went to the fish vendor for some prawns. Uber high tides with a tsnumai on the way. It was a blip of course but wow imagine if it wasn't!

All these logs and debri have washed down the rivers with the rain.

More big black ominous clouds looming. We stayed home most of the weekend to stay out of the torrential rain.

Lots of potential firewood if only we had somewhere to store it!! Hmmm maybe they didn't tell him in the boy scouts that it should be dry before you try this???

Bit of baking been happening here. Check out the recipe blog to see.

Hard Labour

First of all my apologies for being so long between posts. Life has been busy here but not in a fun way and it has kind of suppressed the blogging mojo! I have had complaints that there has been no new posts lately! More than one and that thrills me no end. Not only do people read this drivel, they actually miss it when it is not forthcoming! That makes me very happy.
Which is more than I can say for selling a house. It has been on the market for 5 weeks so far and although we have had lots of inspections, no offers so far. It has been supremely neat and tidy during this time. Coupled with the fact that it has rained almost constantly in that time, making the pool be less than sparkly and perfect. This creates work for KISA as it must be constantly mnitored and tended to keep it inprection ready. Usually we just leave it till the rain clears and then clean it up the once. The constant rain means the grass grows 6 feet a week, meaning it needs mowing every weekend. We have had open houses every weekend. Over. It.The rain stopped briefly one evening and we spotted this out the front window. We have been holed up inside in the air con as the humidityhas been just intolerable, high 90s most of the time. The river flooded a couple of times and washed all this debris onto the beach, causing its closure. Imagine swimming and getting hit on the head with a tree! There have also been many many box jelly fish caught in the nets so aanother reason why the beaches have beeen closed. For the last two weekends we have been working at the unit. The land is not big enough to warrant a lawn, so we have been ripping up the turf and replacing it with river stones. Then we will place our statues etc and potted plants for a low maintainence garden we can leave alone for long stretches.
It was very hard work though.

Once the grass was up we were left with the soil. It is sandy so drains well.

The grass had knitted and put down roots. We should have done it earlier it would have been much easier. Once the stones were laid it looks much neater and will survive all this havy rain.

It all looks kind of dull inthe pictures but riverstone is dirty once it is laid. It rained that night and washed the stones all clean so you can see the different colours in the stone now. We did the front bed too. All up 8 ute loads or 4 cubic metres of river stone. That is 6400 kg of riversrtone or 6.4 tonnes. No wonder we were pooped!