We are Bowen Bound

Some clever person has scored himself a job at the coal terminal up there. He is pretty excited about the job and the responsibilty of setting up the hardware infrastructure for the terminal and being on the ground for the massive expansion which lies ahead.
We are leaving this Saturday. EEK! We have had a couple of recon trips up there, one two weeks ago for a weekend. We were house hunting and came away more confused than when we went up, but it was very helpful actually. We teamed up with a local real estate agent who drove us all over the place, so we have now a reasonably good knowledge of the area. We stayed the night at Horseshoe Bay, which is one of the prettiest beaches in Qld.

This is the view from our room. We cooked our own dinner and enjoyed wine on the balcony.

One of the advantages of being early birds is we can watch the sunrise occasionally, nice with an eastery sea view.

After much cogitating on the best way to go about things, we decided to rent for a while and practice living like we were paying the huge mortgage we would be paying if we bought there without selling our current place. We will save the differnce in a 6% account. So, we have made an application to rent on a place which has just been built a bit out of town. It is set aways up a hillside so has a distant view of the sea.

And a lovely big front patio, to watch said view and take in the breezes.

It has 4 bedrooms, all air conditioned and a double garage. Bigger than our current place, but it was not possible to get what we have here up there. It will cost us exactly what we will receive in rent so it should amount to much the same. With the pay rise we will be better off. Out of all the ones we have seen for sale we liked it best to, so if we are happy with this position, we can buy it. Like try before you buy, but no committment to.

The biggest adaptation, will be the change in lifestyle.

Bowen has a population about 10000 that is set to grow in the next 20 years or so due to coal expansion. The smaller population is a positive for both of us.

We will probably travel back to Mackay for certain shopping, maybe some medical care, and to visit my family and our friends, though we hope to make some friends here. The same length of drive will take us to Townsville as well.

It is drier and hotter here, though less humid.

It was certainly a lovely day when we were here last Saturday. It was quite warm though..these photos were taken at Flagstaff Hill. There is a cafe up there where we had lunch.

We will keep you all posted though we may not have much internet access for a bit. Lots of Maccas coffee coming up I think, so we can use their free wifi!

A big scary bugger!

Well I guess you have heard that we are facing down one of the biggest cyclones to ever hit this country. It is bigger than Tracy that wiped Darwin off the face of the map in 1974. As a result of that storm however, building standards were ramped up, and most houses can withstand a big storm up to category 4. This one will be a 5, so I really feel for those of our fellow Queenslanders further north. Here we are safe as we are some 500klm away, and they are expecting only a blow in the region of a category 1 or 2 which is scary enough but not threatening to either life or property if we are safe indoors, which we are now. The only concern is storm surge and they are unsure how big that would be. We are safe from that where we are as well. We are in a new house on non low lying ground. Nothing in Mackay could be called "higher" ground!
We have our emergency kit packed in case we have to evacuate. All we need to add is a bag of clothes each and the car fridge, which we won't pack till later, when we have the latest tracking and likelihood of necessity. We have sandbagged and duct taped up the back door. Due to a buiding fault yet to be rectified we get quite a lot of water ingress in this door. It leads to the garage so not devastaing, just bloody annoying.

We have taken the outdoor stuff indoors. The outdoor set is all that is left as it takes up heaps of room. We will take it in when it either gets dark or too windy to ignore. The spa will be ok, we will take in the top as that will blow away otherwise.

Just before midday at high tide, we went to the harbour with a last coffee before we bunkered down. The waves were already buiding and it was already very windy.

Quite a few cars were coming out for a look. The rain is starting now too, they are saying we can expect 600 to 700ml. That will cause flooding, as the river is already in flood from Cyclone Anthony's rain last Sunday.

We are in for a wild ride, will keep you posted while we have power.

Tropical Cyclone Anthony

Last night we hunkered down for our first cyclone of the season. Cyclone Anthony crossed the coast at Bowen, it was only a category one, so just a big blow really. We got loads of rain though, and the river is very full now.
We went to our spot at the harbour to check out the sea. They have closed the ports so all the ships have skedaddled. It was waves all the way to Round Top Island. When it rains with one of these storms it really rains.

The real worry is the big ugly sister forming off in the ocean off Vanuatu. They reckon that will arrive on Thursday..

A Prawn for Dinner

As you know, KISA and I are watching our weight, so the other night we had a prawn for dinner. Just the one.
It weighed 80grams after it was fully shelled and deveined. So I made it into 9 wontons, and we had Wonton Soup with it.

Yum Yum Yum..

Happy Australia Day

Happy Australia Day! We had a quiet day and in the afternoon, put on our glad rags and went to the Australia Day Awards at the MECC as M was getting an award. She won the Volunteer of the Year for all the tireless work she does for the community. Here she is getting the award from our Mayor. Sorry about the quality I only got one shot and it was rubbish. She made a great speech, though I know she hates doing that sort of thing! Don't we all! D and M showing off the award. We came back to ours from some drinks and nibbles to celebrate. We are all very proud of you, Congratulations!

On on a side note, Happy Bloggaversary to me! Today it is 2 years since I started this blog!

Finally we get the car home

Yesterday we drove the car back home. Two weeks later than planned! But better late than never and with all the excitement of the last couple of weeks, that is a good thing! KISA landed from Newcastle on Friday and Son 19 and I collected him from the airport. We went back to TBS and loaded up the car fridge then headed to the Sunshine Coast. We stayed the night there with Kand G and family and made an early start the next morning.
It was an uneventful trip, and when we got to the south of Rockhampton, we started to see some of the devastation left by the water, which lay around for nearly 2 weeks.
All the grass was dead and covered with river silt. Still some water laying around, it smelled awful.

The now famous roundabout that featured in all the news reports, the water came up to the top of the plinth the bull is on.

There is a park on the south side of Rockhampton, on the outskirts of town. This is how it looks now.

This is the river from the main bridge in the centre of town. Still very high, a week after the water went down.

Photos from Fairfield

Son 25 and the Divine Miss R live in Fairfield, a suburb of Brisbane that was devastated by the flooding. Thankfully, they live in the higher bit, but only just. This photo they sent was taken of the intersection about 6 houses down from them. There is a Coles supermarket in there where Son 19 works doing nightfill. This is the house on the corner, 6 houses away. A bit too close for comfort for this mother! But they said it was kind of exhilerating in a terrifying then relief sort of way!

Next week I will get to talk to them and hopefully get the full story. Until then due to power issues, there have been texts and a short conversation. We tried to drive to them last Thursday but the police were not letting anyone into the area.