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.
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