Well, nothing has been done on here for ages now, so I thought I would update those that care Since the floods and cyclones this time last year, I have been busy working my arse off trying to save funds for the above trip which starts late April. The work is nothing special, traffic control, but it is important for the safety of the workers and the traveling public. I mainly worked out west from home, mostly for the week and stayed in either motels or dongas(single mens quarters with bed and aircon with a tv and fridge) The hours were long, anywhere from 10-4 hours per day and the pay was not that great, but the overtime made up for everything. As the accomodation, meals etc were all paid for, I had no real expenses(except for the few days I was back in Rocky usually for a day or so every weekend). The savings ratio was the only thing that has kept me going.

Anyway, the bike has been hardly anywhere this past 12 months, I did go down to Chinchilla last year to see off Lelsey and Jim before they headed back to Daytona Beach for another season of work in the states. I managed to get to the Horizons Unlimited meeting down south which was good and that was about it.

But, finally at the end of last year, the work site shut down for the xmas season and I had an enforced unpaid month off. First thing to do was work out who to see and which direction to go As it turns out, my old mate Shayne was also a shift worker and the timing was perfect with his time off, so the next day I packed and headed north to Sarina. It is only a 3 and a bit hour trip up the coast and I was not in a hurry. Once into Sarina itself, as I was a bit early, I thought I would partake of a coldie! It had been very hot during the ride and I had sucked heaps of water, but the old urine colour was still off, so I decided if you cannot beat them join them

Now, whatever magic was used it worked, by drinking amber fluid, I managed to pee clear, I will remember that in future, rule one – Clear in = Amber Out, Amber in = Clear Out!!! While relaxing, Shayne had spotted my bike on his way home and dropped in so another roadie was called for before heading to Grasstree Beach where they live, a very nice choice location except during cyclone season

First thing on the agenda was to stack the fridge and then one by one remove them while bullshitting and catching up on news. This took a while

Next day we got motivated, we decided to set some crab pots, leave them overnight and run them the following day. I only had a few days up here, so squeezing as much in as possible is the best bet. Getting the boat and gear sorted, then the crab pots and baits took a few hours, then it was another hour or so down the road to get to a creek near Notch Point near Ilbilbie. Here we baited up and took to the water, just behind another boat doing the same thing, midweek, just prior to school holidays and before this area gets swamped by people. Just after we put all these pots up the back of the creek, a pro turned up with 40 pots but there was no room up here and his mate was turning up with another 30 pots later on!!! Lucky we got in when we did, with the rain we had last week, the crabs should be up here, rather than out the front of the system.

Queensland Mud crabs are the tastiest crabs in the world, I have tasted a few from different countries by now and nothing beats them. They live in the mangroves in mud(doh) and are bottom feeding crustaceans. Basically to catch them, get a wire pot, shove some fish frames as bait inside it and they will get themselves in but not out of the pot. After we had found an area to set them, we went back to the beginning of the run and checked the first pot, there was a large one on the outside and when I brought it up he jumped off, so we decided to hang around a bit, which was worthwhile despite the falling tide. Sometimes you get other stuff in the pots as well, like jellyfish or as in this case, a codfish, gilled himself, and that meant we had a fresh bait We did the run twice before we had to get the boat out and managed to take home 5 crabs, including the original jumper, which we then cooked up, beauty

The next day was a repeat in that we had to run the pots but also bring them out, we went a bit early and managed to get some fishing in before running the pots again a few times. Before heading home, we had 6 more bucks in the bag Then it was cleaning time, the boat the gear the car etc, while partaking of an amber fluid and cooking and eating crabs, a very enjoyable time. I left mid morning the next day, with some crab on board which was very nice to eat over the next few days for the family and myself

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So, xmas came and went and I contacted a mate called Wart on Boxing Day who was working, but he said come on down tonight for beers and get some bike work done. I stocked up with a pannier full of beer and a rottle of bum and headed to the coast. It was good timing because that night I re-met a number of people I had not seen for ages, it was great to catch up Next morning was the reason for being there, I had been trying to get my mudguard fixed for months now, we knew how to do it, just finding time between his work and mine was hard. But, after taking the wheel off the damage could be assessed. There is a top view from under the seat looking down then up from underneath showing the hole worn through. You can see all the crap under there that has entered when I rode through puddles and mud etc.

Some background here and it gets a bit technical, so you can skip it if you want: At the HU meeting the year before in 2010, this was after I came back from the Americas, around march I think, I rode down and one of the sponsors happened to have a brand new tyre that I had heard of. That is a K60 Heidenau rear tyre. My normal size tyre is 150 wide, 70 deep and a diameter of 17. This tyre was 140 wide, 80 deep and 17 across. This has been documented as being tried and tested. The deeper 80 will flatten out to fill the slightly wider rim width and it will work quite well. Anyway, long story short, it was installed as part of a tyre fitting demo and it has since covered 15,000km with plenty of tread left, a good result for tyre wear and I have never had any issues with its performance. The tyre itself had a tread depth of 16mm from memory, a lot more than conventional tyres. Here you can see the absolutely shagged old one being removed and the great chunky one being installed

It may have been a combination of factors, but every time I hit a dip or bump, the tyre would rub under the mudguard eventually wearing a hole in it. My bike is lowered so that may have exacerbated the problem. Needles to say, it was an easy fix, now that we had a workshop and time to do it. While I got on with changing out the spark plugs(originals still in at 37,000km) and the air filter, still original as well, Wart did the deed on the repair. First up, some light gauge aluminium checker plate, cut to size and bent to shape.

Next the holes were drilled and a tube of black sikaflex used, while the plate was pop riveted to the underneath of the guard. Like I said quick and easy, but now the water can stay out from all my electronics!!!

And voila, job done, thanks Wart Just for the record, my spark plugs were still performing well but with their age and the quality of the air filter, I am hoping for better fuel economy from now on

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Well, that was xmas over and a few days to relax you may think, but no, a month or so ago I had decided to start a business online to hopefully work for me while I am traveling, so I was busy with this as well as trip planning. For the record, although I had access to the internet at my work/camp site, after a 12-14 hour day, after a shower and a feed I was about ready for bed after reading some emails and maybe a few forums, so this was my planning time. The online business has not been officially launched yet, but it will be soon, watch this space!

With all that done for the moment, I had arranged to meet up with some of my southern friends, I headed down south on the Bruce hwy on the 29th Dec, my destination was Donunder’s place in south west Brisbane, a fellow vstrom rider who I met a few years back in Cobar for the Inaugural Vstrom meeting. The ride was crap, but despite that I enjoyed the ride if you know what I mean, I have not ridden for most of the year and it was great to be on the bike. I arrived at Dons mid afternoon, it is only 650km or so, but the traffic was bad and the speed reduced enforced slow zones were yuck!

After showing me around his area, and showing where last years floods had affected it, it was back home for some well deserved ales and a chat session. Once again it was good to catch up and he and his wife had also been to Turkey, so I managed to pick up some sightseeing tips, thanks It was not going to be a big night because Don had a funeral to go to the next morning, but it was still gone midnight before that square bear looked empty!!! No pictures sorry

The next day I rode over to Graham’s house, he was putting me up for the night. Just as an aside here, my TomTom sat nav is now 5 years old and has old maps. Brisbane has added some nice new roads, my TomTom had no chance, and nor did I, in the end I did the old favourite, head in one direction for 10kms, then try again, that usually gets you away from any snarls and it did this time. Graham, for those that don’t know, very kindly looked after my bike while I was in America. He has a couple of bikes himself(mainly Ducati’s)and does electrical repairs on others and he rode mine to work every couple of weeks or so to keep the juices flowing so to speak. He and Donunder also installed some of my new gear which had been sent there, so I could step off the plane from BsAs and hop on it and head west to the ulysses meet in Albany, a great pair of blokes!

Once I had unloaded my panniers and stocked the fridge, we had visitors, and this kept up all day and cannot remember any of the names except Ange, mainly because she had just bought a brand new Vstrom and was waiting for it to be delivered. We had a great chinwag, and that was when I found out the new model bike has a Gladus motor or some such and is nearly a different bike, a shame it was not there, I would have liked to have had a dorrie at it. But I did get to compare Graham’s garmin Zumo550 with Ange’s Zumo650, I reckon the 650 is my new toy if I can get a cheap enough one

So, beer was drunk, then rum was also drunk and once again it was close to midnight before I crashed out, this time before 12 though Must be getting old eh!!! But in all seriousness, we were riding in the morning.

The next day was New years Eve, I was heading west to Chinchilla to see some more friends, but to get there was about a four hour ride. The boys had decided on a route and were coming to ride with me for the first 100km, through some back roads then dump me leave me with my TomTom to navigate the rest of the way, which was not hard, head west don’t stop til you get there, lol

An early start was called for and we left to meet up with Don at his place, and we were also meeting another Duke ride, another mate of theirs. First off though, an old MotoGuzzi, just for Jim

This is Graham on his ‘factory’ Ducati

Donunder on the 1000 version of the Vstrom, getting some go juice

And we were off for a ride in the country, basically all the twisty winding country roads they could find that headed west, some were just rural roads, but nice countryside. After an hour or so we ended up at Forrest Hill which was the stopping point for breakfast/smoke/morning tea whatever you wanted.

After something to eat, we all went our separate ways, great to ride with you and to meet for a beer and chinwag It was only a couple of hours to Chinchilla and I had originally said mid afternoon, so I dawdled along and got out my GPS(my garmin one in which I save waypoints etc). I decided to look for some geocaches along the way, I had been along here last year and done a few, but this day I only managed to find one.

But that was OK, that is my 99th find

So I arrived in Chinchilla and went to the servo for some deep fried stuff and a cold drink before heading to the house. It was great to catch up with this pair again, fellow bikers are always like that I feel, no matter what bike they ride, there is always that camaraderie, and beer which we had a few of! The afternoon and evening progressed until it was time to go to a party at a friend of theirs house, I took some beer along as you do, I had never met them before, but did that night. Around 11pm we went back to drop the car off before heading up to the local Club Hotel to see in the New Year, lots of drunks around, not as many as watermelon festival time though, all having a good time, only one went with the local BIB for a nap. I had a couple of rums, but to tell the truth, as we were going for a ride tomorrow(today) I was not rally into it, so we were back and crashed out by 1am, all in all a good night though.

Next morning was a reasonably early start, but the ride was only a few hours, we were heading to the Bunya Mountains. Once the bikes were ready we headed off, on the way we picked up Nick, riding his Harley, we made him lead so the noise should scare all them roos away!

It was a nice leisurely ride, with some back country, all sealed of course, and some nice twisties, just the thing.

We eventually got to the top of the mountain, just over 1075m, or about 3300ft, a lot cooler up there, here was where we stopped for a slightly overpriced lunch and took a few photos.

After that break we headed back down again via the lookout where Rocky gets a mention, but no actual distance, just a direction.

Then downhill, through some tight winding tree shrouded roads, with extreme hairpin corners and some nice open country in between.

After the bottom of the loop we started to head back home, first stop on the way was the BUN hotel, bloody thing was closed!!

Next stop was Bell, here the pub was open and we had a nice refresher to clear the colour out of the system, remember, amber in clear out!!

This place was quite nice and under new management, he even had a great deal, you come down and have a meal and some drinks, you get a free room upstairs for the night!! Considering the cost of rooms nowadays, that is a great offer, I will keep that in mind. Then the next stop was at the Exchange pub, another oldie but a goodie

Then it was home time, we had to get back in time for about 5pm as some friends were coming around for dinner, which we managed to do, only a little bit late. Well, as I had missed out on the rum last night, I made up for a few of them this time, it was a great evening and a great days ride. Tomorrow I was heading back home and I was thinking of taking some dirt, the bike looked too clean after the rain the other day cleaned it

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The next morning after brekky, I packed up and we headed north after fuelling up. The idea being to find some dirt, but the first 90km was single lane sealed road, still a nice ride though

We got to the dirt, this is when Jim and Lesley turned around for home, they had some people to go see. Nice to catch up again, thanks for having me and who knows I may get a chance to see you before you head back to the US for Bike week. Then off I went, finally on some dirt and it was fun too, once I got back into the swing of things. The road was in reasonable condition, a grader had been along here at some time since Noah, so it wasn’t that rough, just watch out for the spooked steak!

I had no real idea where I was going btw, I had no paper map, the TomTom was telling me to turn around, but I figured as long as I was heading north, I should hit a main road eventually. There was a waypoint called Auburn Station beforehand, so no worries, plow on and have fun. there was another waypoint called Rockybar, another station and this one caused a modicom of concern because it was heading west, I needed to go north, but in the end it took me to the east west main highway where I could pump up the tyres and head to Theodore via Cracow On the map it is at point 1 where I went west, then back to the east.

At this point, I headed west as I thought the dirt was finished, BUT, I saw this road to the right and it had a great sign and I thought, why not, it hasn’t rained for a day or so, it should be sweet!

Well, the road was a bit narley and loose with some big gonnas embedded in it, so obviously that grader has not reached this far just yet. But, it was fun and the rough stuff cleared up after about 40km or so and then I got some pace up, sitting on a buck twenty in places

They put in a few bits of seal, no idea why, but the joins were shocking, I think I bent a rim on the step up at one of the bits!!! But, eventually I arrived at the Leichhardt highway and I was just 12km east of Theodore and here I turned east for Banana servo and a feed

After that it was all highway home, all in all, an enjoyable vacation and the only reason I cut it short was I had work commitments with my internet business in the morning which I did not want to miss.

Nice to meet all those new faces, although the names are gone already, and it was great to meet up with so many friends in such a short time, although my liver needs a flush!!!!

ciau til next time
TravellingStrom

I will upload a picture

Looks good from here, but cannot download my theme onto my computer

add a map

Here is a hyperlink

http://travellingstrom.com/

Set date of publish to 7th Jan, this may work

Cheers

TS

As you can see, I just found a countdown timer that works within WordPress, happy with this until I can find one that fits on the sidebar. I will play around with this one or others like over the next little while.

But in the meantime, the countdown is on until the next leg of the trip.

Europe, I plan to start officially on Anzac Day, 2012 on the Gallipoli Peninsular in Western Turkey. This is a bit scary, because I don’t have enough dosh yet, and only just had access to the internet while out west(I bought a mobile phone car antenna to get better reception for my internet dongle). Oh well, no excuse now, full on study to get some plans into effect.

BTW – due to the last laptop dying, I do not have all the email addresses of those who used to read this stuff, so if you want to send me a quick email again, please do so.

Cheers
TravellingStrom

That is what happens when you do something a few years ago and in the meantime your laptop dies and maybe a few memory cells went by the wayside as well!!

So, basically I had registered my domain name for 3 years and it had expired. No problem there, but I had a different email address back then and never got the renewal notices.

A bit if a net search and a few phone calls means I am now good for another few years, assuming there is an Internet post 2012

Not much happening since the floods a few months ago, but now the water has gone and revealed all the road damage, I am now head down bum up saving for the next leg with a job out on the roads, mainly out west. A bit of a bonus from the floods though, some of my photos were selected for the documentary that aired last Sunday night on the weather channel. On top of that the local paper saw it and wants to get some background and also want to use some of the photos, and to cap it all I got nominated for a “Disaster Hero” award, wow

Not much bike riding for me recently, but I did a camping trip out at Barcaldine over Anzac Day weekend, to meet some of the people I rode with on the Long Ride and Rumble to the Rock trips. Quite a few of these were going to do the Rumble to Broome, on the north west coast of Australia, so we were meeting to see them off as well. They will be raising money for Prostate Cancer on the way. I spent a few days out here and also did some Geocaching during the ride out and back, so it was a leisurely ride and good weather. I even found a few dirt roads to play on even though one of them was a bit knarley!

So a few old grave sites visited, before stopping at a local servo for the usual, now lucky for me they had a sign there, or I would have been pissed off, but not as much as the cleaner!

A bit of local history, part of my Geocaching part of the ride

So after reaching Barcaldine late afternoon and setting up the campsite, I had a few beers down the pubs, there are 6 of them down the main street, beer drinkers heaven I found one that had the footy live, so that was all good, go the Broncos! Next day was a Geocache day, I was planning on seeding some caches out into the world, but needed co-ordinates, so I went for a ride, as you do. The first was at Back Creek Bore.

The rest of the day was getting the caches ready to place and reading a book, before heading up the pub for some beers and to meet more of the arrivals. As I was not sure about attending, I had no idea where they were all staying, but it turned out to be at the other caravan park, up the road, so I wandered up there for the session, took my own rum of course This is Mick, he lives near my town and met him on both trips, he just survived a horrific crash on his Harley and is getting better, hopefully to ride again, get well soon Mick

And the fairy girls, always having way too much fun these two! At least this time they did not have attachments! But they always manage to get people to cough up some donations for the cancer fund, so goodonyas

Anyway, the night progressed as you would expect it too and I staggered the 1km to my bed very late!

Next day was home time, not an early start but as it is only 650km to home, no worries. I stopped on the way to seed the caches I had made, the first at the Tree of Knowledge, in the main street of Barky. Then I headed east and I had noticed that the table drains out here were still chockers, with quite a few lakes appearing where they normally aren’t, attracts the local wildlife though and looks better than brown dry grass!

Here is a thought on cooking on the road, I had bought a sausage roll earlier for smoko, a Mrs Macs of course and found a way of keeping it hot, tucked in nicely on top of the front cylinder

The idea worked and it tasted great Heading east and into Jericho, this small town is on the Jordon River and south of Lake Galilee, hence the name, well they built a stone sculpture depicting the original middle eastern place of the same name, I left a cache here I also left a few more between Jericho and Rubyvale, so get out there and find them

I am thinking of going to this years Horizons Unlimited meeting, it will depend on if I can afford the time off, if I lose my gig out on the work crews, then it could cost me thousands in lost income. But, it would be a nice weekend, so I may choose to go anyway, if I can sort out a relief person, we shall see.

These meetings for those who don’t know, are for adventure motorcycle travelers and during the weekend, as well as rides of the local area, there are ‘break out’ sessions, where equipment is evaluated and demonstrated, for example, your choice of bed against others, your stove against others. Also, things like “how to’s”, change a bike tyre, remove a helmet from a crashed rider, things like that, great stuff to watch, listen and do.

During the evenings, there are presentations from other travelers from all around the world, who talk/slideshow about trips they have done. These are fun and if you intend to go to those countries, invaluable for first hand knowledge from someone who has been there done that. I spruiked at last years event, sorry for all those who needed sleep, I was still going at 2am I think, rum does that to me I may do a shorter version this year, try anyway

Anyway, thats all for now, rubber side down

Cheers
TravellingStrom

I just returned from up north in cyclone territory. This was voluntary with the SES and we flew to Cairns and then drove south to Cardwell, Tully and Mission Beach each day in the rain, around four hours round trip. We we bunked near Innisfail.

We managed to do quite a lot of emergency repairs, and also repaired the bad relations with the general public after the NSW crew went home leaving dissatisfied people behind.

I have found out how to post photos so here is a small selection. This first one shows the rainforest after the wind blew all the leaves away, don’t despair though, new shoots have already appeared 1 month on.

The next few show some of the damage to houses, the tiled roof must not have had any clips on it and we were tasked to fix the metal roof on the house across the street, a tile had tore a hole though it! There is one condemned house which has only two walls left, but still has the loungeroom suite in place.

All that is nearly over now for us volleys as the commercial repairers and insurance people are taking over. There may be a few small groups go back up in a few weeks but I am unsure whether I can afford more time off.

While there is work on I need to save as much as I can, if I want to start the next leg of my travels next year at a suitable time before the end of the world. And with all these major floods, cyclones, earthquakes etc it sure looks like it is possible

Cheers till next time
TravellingStrom

I doubt I can do a full blog page but you never know.

I am heading to Chinchilla on Wednesday to see Jim and Lesley, I had to work over the Melon Festival weekend so I could not go down. This means I get to see them prior to their return to the US for Daytona Beach Bike Week.

I will learn how to post photos another day

Cheers
TravellingStrom

As a comparison, Rocky was braced for a 9.4m flood peak and we knew it was coming about a week prior, well Toowoomba took the same 9m flood height but nearly overnight! As I write this that water has moved downstream and has taken over the CBD of Brisbane with many suburbs underwater and extreme destruction once again being experienced.

Hopefully, no more lives will be lost, homes and possessions can be replaced, but I guess many businesses who built near the river may never recover.
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For those who tried to access my site over the past few days and got no pictures, well, apparently there has been so much traffic we all exceeded the free bandwidth allowed per month(1Gb), so I upgraded to Pro for a month to maybe see this event through, and BTW, todays post covers a whole week, so it may take a while to load

Meanwhile, back in Rocky I am on my 2nd day off, so thanks to those crews who came back down from the Mackay region to once again relieve us in the ongoing daily floodboat duties. Yesterday was basically relax and go shopping to get a few needed things and prepare for a bike ride today. I was going to take in the northern river crossing which never closed(Alligator Creek) and then a run around the coast, just to get some wind through my hair Sadly, it is raining, bummer, maybe later today then, or I may even go for a wet ride if there is no call out I had a relax last night with a few beers and rums while watching the T20 cricket(close game but once again the poms took the goods on the last ball), and was nearly called out for a night medivac boat ride, but I declined due to alcohol. Not a good idea driving a boat though an unknown paddock in the rain at night!!! I do know the roads out that way, but not enough to drive a boat over them

We should see some relief in a few days as the river at Riverslea is falling, which means by this weekend, the water should be low enough for the main road routes to be inspected and maybe opened to traffic. If you look at the following two graphs of river heights, one is falling and one is steady, well the steady one is Rocky and has been at major flood level for over a week. We are 3 days downstream from Riverslea, so as long as there is no more rain, it may all go away soon-ish.

So, for the past week I have been busy, same as the rest of the Rocky SES crew with the general things that need to be done when the town is cut off by water. I was supposed to get 2 days off from the 5th, but called in for an Ergon assist, basically the power company needed to measure the distance between the water and the power conductors on the high voltage towers, lucky for us they used a laser gadget, apparently the other day they used a pole!!!

Once that job was done I was stood down for the rest of the day, I took that opportunity, while wearing orange SES uniform, to go to the airport to see how the flood barrier was holding up, but due to water levels I decided not to ride the Strom in there!

OK, another place to check out was up at the Mt Archer lookout, after taking a photo of the railway bridge on the move I had a nearly great run up the winding road, a fair bit of debris and stuff from all the rain, and my knobbies are tad worn! From up there you can see that although there is a lot of water lying around, a fair bit of the town itself is actually dry. Now that the rain has stopped a lot of people are nearly back to normal, with the only reminder of the problem being the nearly empty shelves of the local supermarkets and of course the fact there is no access south or west!

So the sort of day off was a sort of relax, it gave my feet a chance to dry out a bit, they had a fair bit of infection from being constantly wet for over 10 days now but were clearing up with some nappy rash treatment Of course, I got a call asking about tomorrow and it looked like another early start, tomorrow being Thursday.

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Well, lucky I am a boatee because the heavens opened and it is pissing down!!! We had another Ergon assist this morning and crikey it was wet! This time it was to clear all the weed and logs from the HV pylons again, this is because they are designed for downwards pressure(compression) not sideways pressure(tension) and we need the power! There are a few dangerous factors involved here, not including electricity, and that includes the current flow from the river, bad visibility, barbed wire and snakes to name a few. We nearly had a snake on board when we tried to dislodge a tree branch, but we managed to avoid it.

This job always takes a few hours and although all you see is a bit of green weed on the surface, sometimes the root balls go for quite a few meters down and they are long and very tangled up around the lower steel. It can be quite tiresome, so lucky I stayed on board today

Later when this job was complete for the day we were tasked with some door knocking with the police(via boat) over in the Port Curtis area, which gave me a chance to take a GPS and record the tracks for other non-local people who may need to get there. There are a few tricky bits, underwater fences, low water over street intersections and fast cross currents etc, but slow and careful driving is the key word to navigate this successfully.

Some kind soul over this way saved some council money by tying the wheelie bins to the pole, well done

Sandshoe Shrub, Boot Bush or T-Boot Tree

Another successful day, but a long one, they average around the 10-12 hours of work, so by the time you get some tea, do a debrief of the day and brief for tomorrow, then get home and shower, wash the gear it is time for bed, before another 5am wakeup!

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Another day dawns and more of the same, this time with a different crew member. The same old towers with Ergon and even though we had cleaned them, some of them were in the direct river flow so they collected more since the last clean. I had been a tad worried about the Ergon boys leaving the boat as they were my responsibility, but that was cleared up and I am only to transport them, the electricity assets are their responsibility and they can clean/fix/inspect how they like. But I was happy to see safety harnesses in use as then I would have a chance at rescue if the worst happened. Of course this is only while I am coxswain, if I am crew, I just sit and do what I am told and be a 2nd pair of eyes for the skipper

We entered new territory today as we had been requested to follow the power lines until they crossed the main Bruce Highway south of Rocky. Before this we had stopped due to low water, but now after finding an unmovable underwater obstruction and marking where it was we came upon some cattle yards which were still full of cattle, very sad They were up to their necks in some cases, while on our other side, some poddy calves had been stranded without their mothers by the looks and were quite thin and malnourished! I called this into HQ and this would be passed on to the RSPCA for further action, even if it is only a bullet! A friend of mine that owns cattle told me the other day once cattle have been in water for a week, they are about stuffed and won’t recover.

So after a few more pylons we reach the end of the line, the next one is on dry land and just beyond it it crosses the highway. Later on we measured this run and it is a smidgeon under 20km, no wonder we use half a tank of fuel each time!

Just a couple of shots I took, one of a magnificent Ghost Gum and then next one looking towards The Range, a suburb on the south side near our main hospital. Most of this area is cattle grazing paddocks and are generally under about 3-4 meters of water(9-12ft).

We had worked our way half way back when we called back to do a different task. We dropped off the electricity mob and picked up some QFRS(Queensland Fire and Rescue Service) people. We needed to take them into Callaghan Park racecourse where they could assess a large capacity water pump, apparently a local sports club was fighting a losing battle and this may need to be lifted out by chopper. In fact they had already placed an order for both traffic bridges to be closed at 4.30pm so the load could be taken upriver. Well, the inspection went well, with the local racecourse manager showing us the clear channel through the carpark.

Needless to say, there were some issues with power lines right in that corner so the job was postponed until tomorrow morning and this time more Ergon boys would be needed to pull the fuses up the poles before the lift. The only other thing of note was that we had picked up a hitchhiker, I nearly chopped its head off when I lowered the boat motor. For visual reference, that is the hydraulic trim/tilt gear that lifts the motor and is attached to the back of the transom. It was only a baby brown snake which I managed to get out of there, it promptly jumped up on the trailer, but it fell off when we moved and we coaxed it into the bushes

We actually had an early finish today, well it was before 6pm for a change, so there was time to go for a few Friday night beers at the local, not many though as another early Ergon assist was on the cards, as well as sorting out this pump pick up and fuse pulling.

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Another day, another pylon, and in fact it is the same one that is constantly picking up the weed. But today, there was only one job, get that corner pylon cleaned as much as possible and forget the rest. They really needed a 3m pole with a curved limb saw on the end but although they had asked for it, their powers to be had said no. We supplied them with a normal limb saw, but it meant getting right into the water again. All in all, they were both in there about an hour and pretty much cleared it down to a depth of a few meters. Now, pay special attention to the 2nd photo. We are tied off at the downstream leg of the pylon and even though we have the motor off and raised(to stop weed catching on the prop) we actually have to push the boat away from the structure to let the boys in the water, we are getting sucked in!!!! A bit of Venturi effect or some such thing I guess

On the way back to the boat launch we inspected a different launch point, for when the water lowers a bit and spotted the smallest SES floodboat ever, it must be for cadets

I just want to explain the words Boat Launch here. Normally here in Oz we call a place where we launch a boat, a boat ramp, because it ramps down and is used for boats. So, we launch a boat at a boat ramp. But, in my travels recently in the states, I noticed they use the words Boat Launch instead of Boat Ramp and to tell the truth, in recent days it has had a closer meaning to what I am doing, so I have refrained from using boat ramp on the radio and substituted Boat Launch instead, specifically because we are using a street intersection with a railway line as our launch point

I am glad that is off my chest Another boat launch is in the main street that runs by the railway yards, there are many boats along here and once again this is where we launched two boats, mine(well not mine, but one I have been in for 5 days) and the tinny. We were tasked with crossing over to Port Curtis again with the police to do a welfare check and try and ascertain who is actually still in their homes and who has evacuated. We also had to take some media dude from one of the southern papers, but he had no control over where we went, it was the coxswains decisions and no money or beer would change hands!

There were quite a few other residents in this area as well.

Some boats work, some don’t and the local mine repair place had taken some more losses with quite a few more tyres outside the fence and working their way downstream. We also got called about an evac and when we got close to the house we found he had moved himself across to the local pub for a better pickup, his driveway was a nightmare of crosscurrents!

This is the normal mode of transport around these parts and with those little tiny electric hand held motors, it makes for tidy docking

Now, I am sure he was expecting a higher level, but what a great idea

It was a good call getting the job done so early today as I was looking for a bit of time off. My fishing club had decided to donate all proceeds from our normal Sunday raffle to the flood appeal and as I was secretary I wanted to get a bit more involved and was lucky enough to get home cleaned up and down the club by 4pm We(that is some of our members) had done some calling around and we had a heap of gear donated for the event so that was a great effort by them. In the end we raised $1,700 which was excellent so thanks to all those that were involved in any way and of course the patrons of the club who bought the tickets, it was very worthy.

Mind you, no rest for the wicked, I had to turn up again for another day tomorrow and there was talk of Tuesday/Wednesday off, I hope so, it gets tiring after a while!

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Well, today was a mixed day, first off the expected crew did not turn up, so that meant trying to find a replacement. This took a while, also we had other tasks to do besides the electric run, there was now a major stink because I had complained yet again about them cattle stuck in the yards and nothing had been done. So, today we were taking a police officer along to check on them, plus to check on a mob of roos stranded inside another location. Well, one thing can be said for doing the same thing day after day, you can learn the short cuts and also how to do things a bit more efficiently. So, same pylon run, but we had smoothed things out and now what we do is launch the boat, run at planing speed the 20km to the end of the line and take note of which pylons need doing, then stop on the way back and do them. The first thing we noticed today was the cattle in the cattle yards had gone!!

We spotted a tinny coming towards us and it turns out he was a local cocky who was feeding the poddy calves with hay as they were on dry ground, and it turns out the group in the yards had finally worked upstream against the slightly reduced current and managed to get out of the yards and headed downstream and were mostly on dry land about 2km away Because the water had dropped slightly, about 100mm or 4″ he also showed us a different way around the cattle yards and cut the fence for us, goodonyam8

So, the copper took all the details he needed and we got to the end of the line and started working our way back. Just as the boys started work on a fully weeded pylon we got tasked with a medical emergency, so we high tailed it across the paddocks and took an old lady back to the boat ramp as she had slipped and hit her head, she is OK though!

Then we checked out the mob of roos and passed on details about them, maybe they can do a food drop, although they look quite happy. I have been trying in vain to find my pictures, but I recall now that when I was driving these streets, there were cross currents so I actually never took any, never mind, imagine about 20 roos sitting around a tractor on a small hill surrounded by water in a fenced off paddock So, after about 5 hours, we finally got back to our starting point, 20km away at the end of the pylon run and the boys could start work, lol We picked up another few hitch hikers, nice ones this time and it seemed Trent was trying to emulate one of them while trying to keep his feet dry for a change

This is our new path back around the cattle yards, basically come out through one gate from the back paddock, down the road a short way, around the street sign, then in through the new gate the cocky had cut for us. It was a tad tricky because we were going downstream, which meant spinning around after the first gate, power on against the current to line up for this gate then back off and float through keep to the right of the windmill and turn left at the dead trees and head back to the electric corridor, you sorta have to be there

Late afternoon and the job was complete when we got tasked to go do a welfare check on a resident who was still at home, but had very bad or no reliable phone connection over in Port Curtis. Well, we showed another boat crew how to get there then found that we were on the wrong side of the railway lines!!!!! In this next shot, if we had launched our boat from the main highway about 150m straight ahead, we would have been done sooner, lol!!

This was the same railway lines we floated(and I use that word advisedly) across the other day then needed 4 others to help us pull it upstream! This time we walked and the water was up to my armpits before making contact with the owner, he was good and we worked out some comms protocol for futire use.

After dropping off the extra boat and directing them back to their boat launch near the railway lines, we took ours back across the river to find our car and trailer. On the way back we noticed that the red yacht that had been a navigation point for entry into Gavial Creek had finally broken its mooring and was now resting against a tree in the paddock below Gavial Creek bridge. How it missed the bridge structure itself or the other boat on top of it is a mystery! We met up with the water cops and I passed on information regarding the New Years Eve search, so they could trace the owner. It is OK, but how long for is anyones guess!!!

Well, another long day but we got a lot achieved and from what I have heard, Mackay had sent down another group of FBO’s(flood boat operators) and once I show them the power line obstacles tomorrow, I could have a few days off

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Well, today was another aborted start, a bit of confusion as to who my crew was, I was supposed to be showing two Mackay FBO’s the power line run but in the end I only took one, but as he is an FBO instructor, hopefully he will remember everything. Mind you, yesterday, on the way back we did use fleuro tape on some of the water hazards and as we found out, the water had dropped another 3 inches, so some of the obstacles were now self evident. The Ergon boys are now so relaxed, they slept on the trip out!

Brian had brought a GPS, so he was making tracks and saving nav points, but it was actually quite easy. Once he got used to this particular boat he should have no troubles We saw quite a few snakes again today, this one was quite large!

Because we had plenty of time with no conflicting tasks, the boys decided to check each tower. Even though they looked clear, if they had not been looked at before, they were checked. In fact about 5 towers were out of the flow, so never showed any sign of weed, but one of these did have a different hazard, some type of plastic/canvas type of sign, maybe inflatable even? Anyway, we towed it away from the pylon downstream and released it.

And the only hitch hiker we picked up today was a small jumping spider on Brian’s hat

We spent a fair bit of time on each tower and instructing on underwater stuff but were actually finished around lunchtime. And with the water dropping over the next few days, there may be no need of this task when I return on Thursday.

I hope you have enjoyed this episode, and if you would like to donate some money, time, or goods to the relief then please do so, I am sure they will be appreciated. It is a strange thing being in a country where we have always donated things overseas and now we may actually need some help ourselves. The whole of Queensland is just about a disaster area and some of that water is flowing into New South Wales now as well. For those in the US who know about Katrina, the area that was effected aver there was about 250,000 square kms, we have an area in excess of 1,000,000 square kms. Those are not my numbers, I got them from elsewhere, but they seem correct with the checking I did.

Anyway, until the next update, which will be the messy, smelly cleanup stage, keel side down!

Cheers
TravellingStrom

So, finally we get to launch the boat and help the Ergon boys, the local electricity supply company who are concerned with the build up of logs and weed etc on the power pylons, I guess they are designed for downwards force, not sideways. Anyway, we launch just down the road at another railway crossing where it goes down besides the cricket grounds. Isn’t it strange, all the sports fields are in the flood prone areas?

These are the pylons I have been talking about.

Another sport underwater, this time the ‘sport of kings’, Callaghan Park Racecourse, but I guess only good for seahorse races now eh!

The pathway, quite diligently kept clear all year round, except we are crossing the local soccer grounds, so we have to be carefull of goalposts, dressing shelters etc, a small amount of weed up this way.

The soccer club I think from memory, pretty much wasted!

Trying to remove weed buildup without getting hooked by barbed wire, put there to stop people climbing towers, usualy quite a few meters off the ground! In fact we are in 3 meters of water here.

Not sure what happened to the little magpie, but he did not look healthy Now, we had to cross the Fitzroy River to follow the pylons and it turned out to be not as bad as I thought it would be, but, remember the yacht we saw the other day, when we went looking for the dude in a rubber ducky? Well, we had to go back down this creek and what a difference a few days make, his boat was on the other side of the creek, so he must have been back to move it and the blue fishing vessel, well see for yourself!!!!

Yep, the boat dragged or broke its mooring and is now well and truely stuffed, it is sitting on top of the bridge structure and when the tide goes out, who knows what it will do, go down and under or just sit there, time will tell, poor people? Now we are in the calm of the flood waters which are now only a few meters deep and very wide with paddocks and a few gates and fences under us, nothing dramatic, but there were a lot of pylons to check, some clear some very blocked off with weed or branches causing fast eddy currents in some places.

After a few hours we headed back with the job done to the best of our ability with bare hands. Sometimes, the weed reached below the waterline by over a meter and was fully entangled, some cutting tools would be needed next time. Quite a few choppers were around over Rocky and as it was the only means of air transport into and out of the city, this is to be expected. They are being used to shuttle in food and essential supplies. Also we passed another sporting ground, the local hack club, very wet indeed.

OK, job done now we head to south rocky after retrieving the boat and put the boat in on the southern highway into town, Gladstone Road. The task is to bring an essential medical person back into town from the other side of the railway lines, this was a bit easier to say than do, but after negotiating the rapids over the railway lines, we did in fact get there, getting back was another story. The first rail crossing was way too shallow, so we went up the side of it until the next crossing to the right, this one we managed to get over, with the aid of a following current

Once in the calm, it was just a short hike past the local pub, then the school and the local CAT repair shop where they do lots of mining equipment repairs, but this was flooded out and a lot of gear had broken through the fence and headed off to other pastures!

Many people were still living down here, they seemed fine and when asked gave the thumbs up, they had planned ahead, unlike a lot of others.

Isn’t the water supposed to on the inside? Unless it is planned to be the next ark

We checked out some animals on a local property, goats, cattle and horses seemed all good, they had grass and were not going to go thirsty.

So, we have our passenger and when we get to the rail crossing, we had no chance whatsoever of getting the boat uphill against the current(left to right in photo), it weighs about a tonne! In the end we called some more personell, they just got into town from Mackay and came down and helped us skulldrag the heavy beast while a channel 7 chopper hovered overhead, thanks boys

So, after retrieving the boat from the water and delivering our passenger to her car we headed off back to HQ, via a local shop where dad finally gets his present, a hard time of year to buy sometimes. The local pub next door, managed by a friend of mine Red, has a sense of humour, wishful thinking methinks

Next task, launch the boat in the street near the HQ and take a police person around door knocking. There was a bit of confusion over this as the water was too shallow for our boat and we had missed the briefing as to what we actually were to tell people, in the end, we retrieved the boat and packed it away for the night. There is a shot of the pub with the dirt wall, you can see the water has risen a bit from the other day.

On our return we were told we had tomorrow off as the northern crew would take over before they headed home the day after, we needed to be fresh for when they go, sounds good to me

Cheers till next time
TS

But, as soon as we got through the gates and onto the river, we were called via radio, the chap has made it to shore and has been arrested and will spend a bit of time in custody. Another person who did not drown, 2 in a row!!! Not much on for me after this, went for a cruise past the Float-el and then to the airport to swap vehicles as the troop carrier was needed for evacs. The barrier system was coming along nicely and they seemed to have covered a lot of distance, and that was thanks to the extra SES members brought in from up north, good onya The airport was still open, so there were intentional gaps to allow passengers through, but it would shut later today. There is a top layer of plastic liner, like a pool liner that goes over the metal sheets and is held on by clips and chain, I tried to get an after shot, but the water was too high for the Vstrom, so I dipped out!

Next task was to take one of the rural fire trucks and have them follow me as the local navigator. They had a high clearance vehicle, and as Depot Hill was now inaccessible by normal light vehicle, they would transport me, food and drugs across and bring back evacuees, who would then get in the troop carrier for transport to the Evac centre.

This next job was to supply some sandbags. I talked with the elderly owners of the lowset home to find out what they wanted, then I realised it would be pointless. They wanted to lay some sandbags along the ground at the bottom of the green picket fence where it butts up against the brick post/wall to stop water coming up from the right hand side. Once I had a look, I spotted the 1991 high water mark(previous flood) on the pole to the right of picture, we would need to build a 1 meter berm to stop the water which was impossible with the resources we had to hand. Instead, I had to advise them about ‘lift and shift’ which just means lift what you can onto other things and shift other stuff out. They had too much to move and too late to do it, but mainly two sets of furniture of theirs and their sons, they had already shifted their personal posessions to higher ground, but the house was chockers with furniture.. The water was just to right of picture and can be seen in the next shot when I went across and made sure the two horses werent stuck, they were good

Some general flood shots, amazing what people will do when there is water around, but these were using the inflateables to shift gear etc, mostly, a bit of frolicking was happening also The rail freight yard was shut down of course!

Next job was down by the river which had a high roadway, basically take the lady and her gear away to the evac centre. Most of the evacuations were needed because the power had been shut off to some of this suburb. Behind the car is the river.

Over the next few hours it was pick up in either the truck or a boat and do some midstream transfers, then shuttle them to the forward command post, for transportation to the evac centre, or to their family, animals were on the priority list as well, with plenty of RSPCA workers to lend a hand.

This lasted until around 7pm before heading back to our HQ and some well needed tucker. Not as late a finish as last night, but it does take it out of you, because the rain has gone and left hot humid days, ideal conditions for dehydration.

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Another 7am start, once again to meet the Ergon boys and would you believe it, 3 days in a row and another dude went for a swim!!!! I was not involved in this search, but quite a few boats from different emergency services and a chopper scoured the river for a few hours before it was called off. Too many much needed resources were being used when there was no actual evidence that anyone went in, if he did, he has gone! My tasking was the same as yesterday, help out with evacuations using the firetruck and the troopy, no boat for me and a bit dissapointed about it too! This local hotel went and spent some dosh on building a dyke, and considering the cost of the renovations a few years back, well worth it I guess. The water is just at the edge on the left. So far!

The next few hours was spent taking a lady and her two cats from her home to the evac center, which involved finding some cat cages(the local pound was under water with all its cages), but this job was eventually done using the truck, the troopy and my parents cat cages There was an animal refuge set up at the local university and also some wildlife hanging around as well.

The next job was way over town on the citys entrance, but once we reached the turnoff the driver of the firetruck said no way, he does not trust the road edges and the truck weighed 17 tonne, so that job was reallocated to the boat crews.

Another local pub where they were all having a good time, I could do with one of those.

The Depot Hill forward command post, where the boats are launched and evacuees are brought out to for further transportation. Most of the time the boat is just walked down the street with gear and people because the water is a tad shallow for motor, but that will change as the water still has another 500mm to go apparently.

An early afternoon for me as I was getting fatigued and asked to be stood down. It has been a long week since Boxing Day and the trip to Theodore, so a few coldies and a chance to have dry feet would be great The northern crews had now been shown by some of our local crews where to take the boats, so the whole of Rocky SES needed a break, as the amount of callouts over the past 2 months, plus this flood, was taking its toll.

See ya in a few days
Travelling(by boat)Strom