Fires, floods.... plague of locust?

In Queensland in December it was fire.

In Queensland in January it's floods.

While we currently live on a mountain therefore didn't get flooded (and if we  do ever flood, we will be talking water levels of biblical proportions) we didn't escape the storms.  

For three days and three nights we were battered by ceaseless cyclonic winds (officially clocked >125km/hr). We were left with no power from Australia Day (Saturday January 26th) until Friday 1^st February. And in the bush no power = no running water = no waste water system.

On Saturday 27th the phone lines went down too.

The view during the storm - not quite as effective without a sound track

Fortunately, we came through it all relatively unscathed - just the outdoor shade sails, the living room curtains (from horizontal rain coming in over the windows) and all the perishable food. We didn’t even try to kill each after being locked together with no power, no phone & no internet for 72 hours. The feline crew were in cat heaven as they had to eat tinned food (cat equivalent of McDonald's) for several days. 

The whole area's electrical system needs a rebuild.  Guy was saying on the radio that they sent a crew up the first night but they came straight back down as “trees were landing all around them”. Wusses.

The new water feature - oh wait, that's the front stairs

The Android managed to get up onto the roof Tuesday afternoon. Despite several ominous large bangs over the weekend, there wasn't a scratch on it. All the solar panels are intact & undamaged. 

Large sections of the mountain had blocked both roads , so we had to take the scenic route all week. The council had to put roadblocks up to stop non-residents - apparently there are a lot of “trauma tourists” wanting to get up to see the damage on the mountain.

Humans are weird.

We found an exhausted bird lying in the middle of the road on the way down to to work during the week - Viktoria made the Android stop so that we could pick it up (only a small tantrum). We took it to the vet. It’s apparently a juvenile Sooty Tern, which looks like it’s been blown all the way from the islands off the far north Queensland coast. Poor little thing. Fortunately, the vet have a specialist seabird carer to look after it (and a bedraggled pelican which arrived at the vet shortly before us). 

After a week of hauling water in buckets upstairs & taking cold sponge baths, we definitely want a header tank at the new Tasmanian place…