Caught In The Flood With A Camera

It’s flood-time in Queensland and this year is a big one! Having lived through a few monsoons in Asia, I actually thought I had seen what heavy rain looks like – but then I got to Lake Moogerah…

Here we are in the speedboat, floating around on the lawn. Usually you have to walk a hundred meters to get to the lake from here. Weird. Our shack is on top of the hill.

For 3 days solid, the rain has been coming down relentlessly without pause, causing the lake that we live on to swell about 8 meters, from what I can tell. Thankfully our shack is sitting on a hill, so we are comfortably observing the flooding without fear of getting washed away.

This is from across the lake at a holiday house area. A little more of a lake view than they bargained for perhaps.

Here in South East Queensland everybody is pretty much flooded in. We’re talking hundreds of square kilometers and hundreds of thousands of people having their neighborhoods washed over with the incredibly large masses of water.

Stealing Australia Day

It’s Australia Day and it’s raining. A lot. The party is not happening anywhere. In fact, I am “flooded in”. The roads are under water and will be so for a few days. I have never seen rain like this in my life. More on that in a few days time.

This is rain water reaching up into a tree’s canopy. I will post more photos of the floods soon, it’s crazy out here…

Meanwhile, I live on a hill and we have a boat, so we’re waiting it out. And speaking of boats, I’ve been reading up on why today is called Australia Day. The media is all over this historic day and the vultures are out to spin their coins and votes on the Aussie myth of multiculturalism.

Yet it’s hard to ignore that today is the anniversary of the violent occupation of a whole continent inhabited by real people with an ancient history and wisdom.

225 years ago yesterday, a certain Captain Arthur Phillip and a few dozen soldiers, rowed ashore in Sydney Cove and took possession of Australia in the name of the English King George III. Australia’s very first boat people had arrived on the First Fleet and they started a prison as the first thing.

A cartoon by Joel Tarling

They had come on a fleet of 11 ships sent by the British Admiralty, carrying nearly 1500 people, of which approximately half were convicts. For 252 days they had been traveling more than 24,000 km, losing almost 50 lives en route.

Same Old Great New

A suitcase and a laptop, what more do you really need?

After the untimely death of my old computer, I am now back on track with a brand new and completely identical laptop. In other words, now I have no excuses not to write and write and then write some more. Please hold me to these words 😉

Big thanks to my AMAZING parents who sponsored my new workhorse – Portius. More than merely a great present, this is also a recognition of my dreams of being a writer. I only wish that everybody could have as supportive, understanding and loving parents as I do. Thank you!

An Ipswich Hour

Yours truly, digging deeper into suburban soil. What’s this, is Cornelius finally settling down? Read on to find out…

Disclaimer: This post is written under the influence of heavy prejudice and a self-centered cultural bias. Be prepared for gross generalizations and faulty facts.

I was hanging out in Brisbane for a day and catching up with Aussie friends that I had met while in India. Going from one outback destination to another, I realized that this was my first truly urban experience of Australia.