Cyclone Larry!

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HI all,

Just a quick update as we have only just managed to get power and phone lines restored after 2 days without following Cyclone Larry which tore through Queensland and the Cairns region.

Today's papers suggested that it came with winds of upto 280/290 kph and having been woken up by the winds at 6am on monday morning I reckon they werent far off from what we saw outside, usual hurricane and cyclone stupidity , power cables down, phone lines down, flooding closing roads and large uprooted palm trees scattered all over the place.

All in all an exciting but scary couple of hours with the eye of the storm passing over Innisfail, a town we passed through only a few days earlier to reach Cairns, and which is only 70km away. A town which from the pictures in the papers and on tv appears to be absolutely battered, likened to an "an atomic bomb" having gone off and considering the papers suggested it was the worst Cyclone to hit Queensland in over 100 years!!! It really was something else.

All in the hostel including sheila outside it are safe and well if not a little deprived of sleep, cool fridges and air conditioning and tropical humid heats. They are talking that another one is off the eastern coast near queensland and could strike in a few days. We are not going anywhere and will stay where we are until roads are cleared and rwe can continue travelling south.

At the moment they are not sure how strong this cyclone will be (currently Grade 2) with the one that hit on monday morning a grade 5!

Still that's all for now, expect piccies and destruction photos posted on blog soon.

Hope all are well

Love Mike

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Photos

Tree near our hostel
only about 50 metres from our hostel, this tree was brought down by the winds. Needless to say we were keen to get back on the road.

Mission Beach
We visited this beach only a week before the cyclone struck. It's now in one of the owrst affected areas.

Banana Plantation
Just a tiny fraction of the devasted banana crop of the northern territory. Estimates of $500million dollars of stock and crop damage were casued, accounting for 95% of ALL of australias banana consumption.