Drive and arrive – 2013 floods

Ah – back again?  Ready to drive home with us after our lovely little getaway? (Before the heavens opened above our corner of the world)

Okay – our final day in Brisbane was spent working out ways to get home.

If you have ever experienced a caged bear, then you will know what my husband was like.  Knowing that floodwaters were hitting our place, and being 500km (and dozens of possible road-cuts) from there.  We knew that the next day we had to try, even if we only got part of the way.

So we took a long final look at Brisbane …

As the river began to rise in the city and frantic sandbagging  took place in low-lying businesses…

Man we felt for these guys…

We had a final meal – at our favourite old haunt Little Tokyo – introducing the kids to the delights of Shabu Shabu.

And the next morning we packed (including I admit, the toilet paper from the hotel in case we got stuck along the way!) and hit the road.

To immediate bad news…

We regrouped at my FILs place on the Sunshine Coast, made a zillion phone calls and consulted many, many websites and advice on social media.

We discovered a trucky’s sidetrack which snuck us around the cut main road (which was weirdly dusty and on which we drove through NO water!).

To discover a very damp Gympie.

We stocked up on groceries (although the milk was already gone from the fridges at the supermarkets) and headed north, through freshly opened roads.  We checked regularly with truckies along the way and made our way past Maryborough…

Over a very swollen Mary River…

Before turning inland and (on advice from those who had already travelled the route) made our way to Gayndah.

Check out the pics of Gayndah in this previous post – these shots were taken 36 hours apart.

It was eerie and the water was still very loud and not far below the roadway… but we got the all clear from council workers and drove on over.

The rest of the drive I didn’t photograph… towns without power lit only by forgotten solar Christmas lights, the plantation where a local girl was almost swept away, trees lying flat as far as our headlights would show…. each milestone we reached was quietly acknowledged and the enormity of what had gone on in our absence began to really hit home. We arrived home at 10.30pm.   We had Brisbane at 8am.  And while the drive was nerve-wracking, in the end our tyres really only got wet within 10km of home.

We had no power, no phone but two happy faces and a busy generator to greet us.

Home sweet home.

🙂

BB

PS A huge shout out to all the council employees who worked furiously to get roads open for travellers like us – amazing effort considering the damage done and scale of the regions impacted.  Fabulous work!

Next: the Granite Glen post-flood images.