Have been busy being jet set which has been amazing. Decided to take a trip down under to the merry old land of Oz.
I arrived in Sydney with no expectations really, normally I spend weeks and weeks obsessively reading up on my chosen holiday destinations but for some reason Australia has never really excited me. I kind of always assumed it was mostly like England but with nicer weather and full of people who were obsessed with bbq food. Oh and I think someone said something about jellyfish.
In fact, so disorganised I was I didnt actually realise we needed a visa until the day of travel...doh! fortunately you can get them fairly easily online!
In truth, its not like England at all really. Its bloody massive for a start. England is the size of a tiny ant. I think going somewhere so big does make you feel tiny and insignificant on the scale of things.
Anyway...It all started well, sunshine, pizza, jugs of tooheys new and chilling in the big city. After 2 days we headed up to cairns. Id heard great things about cairns so I was actually a bit excited by this point to be going there.
And when we got there I was not disappointed. Beautiful day, and it looked gorgeous.
We arrived at our hostel where we were greeted by a typical chirpy aussie who checked us in
'hey guys, yep got you a room on the top floor tonight, but we are going to try to move everyone downstairs tomorrow'
'ok...(we look confused about the moving rooms situation)
'you don't know what Im talking about do you? didnt anyone tell you'
Now Im on my holidays I don't read the news papers and again at this point I was regretting not researching prior to travel.
With that, chirpy Aussie man, (still smiling) slaps a newspaper on the counter. On the front page was a picture of a large storm system...underneath, the headline read: 'The monster'
G U L P
'Yeah, so we are actually recommending everyone tries to leave cairns. There is a flight out to the gold coast tomorrow'
Rob and I look at each other, and just start laughing. Coming from a country where a light snowfall can shut an airport, neither of us have any experience of weather that is really any more extreme than a light drizzle.
Ah well says Rob 'its only a bit of wind'...'lets go for a beer'
Anyway...a few hours pass and we are not laughing so much any more. People are starting to look nervous. Severe Tropical Cyclone Yasi is upgraded to a category 5 storm system. We book a flight out. They close the airport. The storm is so large there is no point driving anywhere as there is not time to get out of its way. All there is to do, is sit back and take it.
6am Im up, not sleeping well due to jet lag and nightmares involving flying cows like in the film twister. When I log on to the news page on the internet the headlines read like the apocalypse. Nothing like media hype for when you need reassurance. The big news now is the potential storm surge, south of the centre of the cyclone the tidal surge is expected to reach 6 metres. The low lying areas are being evacuated. The army has flown everyone in Cairns hospital to Brisbane. One article actually uses the word tsunami.
Now I've never had to cope with any sort of disaster and I always thought I was someone that wasn't phased by much, but at this point, I'm ashamed to admit I cried like an 8 year old girl. No longer was I annoyed that some bad weather might ruin my holiday, this looked way worse.
We go to the supermarket to stock up on batteries, canned food etc. Its 7.30am and its very windy. The cyclone isn't even due to cross the coast until 11pm. Supermarket is obviously shut, we meet an american couple from our hostel on our way back.
'Is the supermarket closed' the guy says
'yeah' I reply
'all day?'
'yep there is a sign in the window'
'is it because of the cyclone?'
Now...if someone was to give an award for dumb questions that would be up there. No its closed because they have run out of eggs. I mean...seriously!!
The hostel makes the decision to ship us all out to an evacuation centre. The hostel is a wooden structure, and they are not sure how it will hold out.
The evacuation centre - the mall
It was an interesting night to say the least. 24 hours at close quarters with 3,000 other people. I still wish that the old guy sleeping near me wore some socks...seriously 24 hours with someones crusty feet in your face...no fun!
The red cross arrive and are brilliant. Ration packs are handed out and they update us hourly which as there is no TV is needed to stop everyone going nuts.
ration time!
The last red cross announcement is at 10pm then the power goes out 'cyclone yasi is a serious threat to life and property' yeah...thanks
I think I actually managed to fall asleep after then, fear is tiring. A baby was born in our evacuation centre there is a lot of howling an banging (from the cyclone, though I imagine the pregnant lady contributed) and after what seems like hours it goes quiet.
When we finally get let out, I initially think it has been some cruel joke to make me sleep in a mall as cairns is largely intact.
So in a nutshell (as I have to finish this now as rob wants feeding) it was only a bit of wind for us. Unfortunately some were less lucky and the winds did some serious damage to small communities on the coast. No fatalities fortunately but obviously for those who were effected its no joke.
Its days like that, that put life into perspective, and remind you to check whether its cyclone season before you take a holiday :)
thats all for now
Dawn category 5 crusader :) x
