Saturday, February 23, 2013

24 February 2013 - Sydney Tourist Park, Miranda, NSW


Heavy rain pounding on the roof woke us soon after midnight. What a deluge! According to Chris, we have experienced rain like that before however my memory is poor these days. I expected to find my plastic campground clogs gone when I poked my head out the door, washed away in great torrents, down the street all the way to Botony Bay. Surprisingly they were still there, along with Chris’s, just as we had left them, but full of water.

When we turned the television on over breakfast, we learned that there were emergency evacuations in place for Kempsy, the lower parts of Port Macquarie on the Hastings River, Cuddleton near Taree, parts of Grafton and a few parts of Sydney, to name but a few, and all places we have passed through or stayed at not that long ago. Despite the fact the storm had passed, the rivers and creeks are on the rise and in some places already greater than they were in floods of the 1970s. Bellingen, where the showgrounds were a bog and closed to campers last year, was on alert. A news story  showed the causeway already well under water.

Throughout the populated parts of this country the emergency services are having to cope with both fire and flood events; such a country of extremes and drama.

Once the awning was out once more and the wet clothes of yesterday’s excursion hung to dry, we decided to venture out again rather than sit about waiting and waiting for both the weather and mechanical resolution. We caught the train at Miranda and travelled in with the Sunday family crowds to Central Station. From there we made our way to Paddy’s Market and spent a couple of hours mozzying around buying nothing but a Bok Choy cabbage and some capsicums from the Chinese vendors, and then walked up George Street to Town Hall Station where we joined the crowds heading home again on the southbound train once more.

There have been some showers but we have managed to avoid them all today. In fact as I write this, the sun is shining and out of the gusts of wind it is very warm; a balmy 27 degrees of so. Another day closer to leaving and back on the road.

No comments:

Post a Comment