Day 65 - Cyclone Charlotte

We had already heard on the dive boat that there was a cyclone in the making on north Queensland and was on it way to Cairns some time soon. Noone really seemed that fussed so we weren't either really. We got back to Cairns on the 11th January and everything seemed fine.

In the afternoon it started raining which didnt't bother us much. We went to the pub to meet up with our fellow divers from the boat trip and have a few bevvies.

Later that night when we walked back to our camper van, the rain had gotten quite bad and it kept raining heavily all during the night. When we got up in the morning, the street was half flooded already and just walking from the back of the van into the front drenched us.

We hurried to the next internet cafe and bought some newspapers to see what was going on and how that would affect our planned trip to Alice Springs. Well we weren't in for good news. As the cyclone had travelled from center north Australia over the Queensland main land, it had caused quite a big amount of damage along the way. So all major roads going from Queensland to the Northern Territory had been closed due to floods and road damage. Some of the towns along that way had to have food supplies delivered by helicopters. So there wasn't really a way for us to get through there.

So we though we might hang out in Cairns and wait for the floods to subside, but that previous night Cairns had already received 170mm of rain and was about to get double the amount that night. Seeing as the town was already partially flooded and had more to come, we didn't really want to hang around to get pounded with more rain and floods. Our biggest worry was that Cairns only other way out of the city (other than the one that had already been cut of by floods) might get closed to. So we jumped into the van and starting driving south. The aim was to get as south as possible and away from anywhere near Cairns and Townsville which the news said would get hit the worst. So we drove 8 hours through heavy rain and some already badly flooded road areas, which sometimes seemed pretty dangerous to do, but we figured if we stayed where we were it'd only get worse.

So we ended up in Charters Towers which is 200km inland from Townsville. It still rained here but nowhere near as much as the up to 400mm that came down last night between Cairns and Townsille.

We read in local newspaper today that all roads out of Cairns are closed due to flooding. Cairns town centre was very badly flooded so people had to wade through waters coming up to their upper bodies. Apparently people had also been warned to take extra care, as with the rising sea and river water levels, jelly fish, sharks and crocodiles could be swimming around freely anywhere. Eeks.





I'm glad we escaped that. The only problem now is that we either skip going to Alice Springs and Uluru or drive a very long detour around the flooded areas. Hmmm..

To be continued..... :)