Escape from Cairns

We left Cairns on Saturday and headed for Brisbane.

The groceries stores in Cairns were getting very low on food. The major chains, Woolies and Coles had no fruit or veggies. A lot of the other shelves were also empty. A large container ship did arrive Friday night and started unloading their cargo of food. This was the first of a few ships that were do to land so we could be rescued.. They thought it would take a day or two for the food to hit the shelves.

Friday night we went to the bottle shop to get a red wine for happy hour. They were getting low on stock as well. The fellow in front of us had a shopping cart full of beer. I said to him; “are you expecting the road to be flooded for a long time.” He replied; “not sure but I am not taking any chances.”

This shortage of food in Cairns was due to the cyclone that went a shore about 200km south of us. It was only a category one cyclone with winds up to 60 miles an hour but it contained a lot of rain. This rain on top of all the other rain that the area has had caused massive flooding and cut the Bruce Highway, the only highway north. This prevented all the trucks from reaching Cairns and points north of us.

Our week in Cairns was good but we got rain every day and got soaked at least three or four times. Each day their was massive down pours. We did get to see and do all we wanted and we did see some blue skies every now and then.

I think Cairns is about a 4 night 5 day place unless you are going to do some diving, golfing or fishing. The wet season last six months from October to April and then they have their dry season. During the wet you can not swim as the Box Jelly Fish and Iragangi are very dangerous. Not to mention the man eating crocodiles. The are is extremely pretty with mountains that come right down to the sea. The mountains are covered in heavy rain forest which to us is very unique. They ferns, palms, massive trees are a must see.

I think all the rain and humidity was bad for my camera as it does not work any more. Oh well I will have to just get a new one.

We are back in God’s country now as we are staying on the Gold Coast in Surfer’s Paradise for the next two weeks before we move in our exchange home on Mermaid Beach. The sky is blue the temperature is 25 degrees at 8 am and I can not see a cloud.

We golfed yesterday at Club Banora and we were the only ones on the back nine. Today we are off to mountains to play another of our favorite courses , Mullwillumbah.