Under water

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This morning, packing up the Spaceship ©top box for the last time, I glanced down and saw what looked like racehorse froth running off my legs … Such was the ferocity of the continuing rain this morning that I didn’t bother to rinse out my shorts, having hand-washed them, and instead let the rain water wash them and me.
Since our return from 1770 to the Sunshine Coast, it has rained almost without pause for 72 hours – the local town had 200mm rain in three hours yesterday afternoon. As more rivers burst their banks it has become increasingly difficult to move about Queensland and we have experienced several detours in the past day or two. Even Brisbane looks like going under water if there is much more rain and the Spaceship© depot was surrounded by sandbags this morning.

We did manage some excursions though to try and make the most of our last few days in Australia.
Eumundi holds a fantastic market every Saturday morning and we spent several hours listening to and watching the street performers, sampling the street food and checking out all of the interesting stalls and shops. We had a great cafe lunch surrounded by tropical plants being pounded by the monsoon rains.
The following day we ventured to the beautiful Noosa, which was still hosting an Ironman competition, despite the awful weather … It was so bad that we could not even bring ourselves to get out of the camper and disappointingly retreated to the cinema instead of our planned body-boarding session. So, Noosa is added to the growing list of really beautiful places we have seen but not really experienced … I’d love to come back, but during a different part of the El Nino cycle, perhaps.

Life on the campsites has become increasingly depressing watching new rivers flow through the middle of people’s tents, seeing children’s playgrounds turn into dangerous swamps and people not bothering to try and keep themselves dry. So it was with a light heart that we braved the flash floods on the Bruce Highway and pulled into the newly-opened Novotel near Brisbane Airport. Fresh (DRY!) bedding, a shower without lizards and mozzies and space to pack our bags out of the weather – but, oh so much more – a swimming pool for the children and what a swimming pool! A lap-length pool, on the roof-top, with observation windows along its length … for the first time in quite a few days being wet was fun!

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Photos

Oh-oh ...
Oh for a Tom_tom