Avoiding Floods

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Well raining again, nothing new here. We left Port Douglas a little disappointed with the lack of sun but never the less had a great time and saw all the things we wanted to. We didn't have too much of a plan but to just as far south as we could. Much of the area we were about to drive through had been affected by cyclone Yasi. We saw first hand the destruction it caused of houses, farms, crops, even some beaches. Banana plantation crops were broken in half, no wonder the cost of Banana's is $11/kilo here right now. Yikes. Many of these farms will have to start completely over.

The further south we got the more water in the fields we started to notice. It was also slowly creeping closer to being on the road. As you can see in some of the pictures the water is right up next to the road. Needless to say dad was not happy about the prospect of having to drive over anymore water on roads. Just outside of Ingham we encountered a pretty big problem. The car in front of us was stopped and in front of her car was a river going over the road. We watched a guy on the other side walk through to determine how deep it was. It was coming up to his knees. Dad was not happy.

The lady in front of us was a local from Townsville but also in a rental car. She didn't want to risk it. THe cars from the other side started to come through. A guy in a very small car made it through and as he passed us dad said something to him about being able to make it and the guy said to us "If you don't go now you'll be stuck here for 2 or 3 days." Not a good prospect for us. A couple of 4x4's behind us decided to go and we quickly followed behind as they displaced some of the water. It was a bit nerve racking but we made it through! Later that day we heard news on the radio that the road was closed and would be for the next day or two probably. We got lucky!!!

We kept on trucking and got ourselves to a small town called Bowen. We arrived in the early evening and went in search of a place to stay for the night. We checked out several caravan sites and a hostel but nothing was the right price or what we wanted. Finally we pulled into a hotel called "The castle" haha. Well we got it for the right price but no kitchen. So subway for dinner and we settled into our "castle". Not much to check out in Bowen but there is a lookout that we checked out the next morning after breakfast. Great views of the area.

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