Carnarvon (To hell and back again)

To all who have been following our blog I must apologize for the lack of postings the past several days.  There has been a very good reason for the gap between stories.  I will attempt to give all a clear picture of what has happened so bear with us.  Here goes....................

The day we left Monkey Mia was Dec 16th in the morning.  We drove back down the long lonely stretch of road towards the Northern Highway and it was an overcast day with a bit of drizzle but still warm.  On the way out we stopped at a couple of places prior to getting to the highway.  Once back on the highway we had about a 2 hour drive to Carnarvon which was to be a one night stop over on our way to Exmouth.  Or so we thought............

That's when  the proverbial shit hit the fan.  Little did we know there was a tropical storm out in the Indian Ocean for the last week and it decided to come to land and center itself over Carnarvon on the same day we arrived.  This storm dumped almost 400ml of rain on the area in 3 days which is more then double the area gets in a year on average.  All the roads were closed the next morning on the 17th and we could not leave town due to flooding of the coastal highway.  So we spent the next 3 days wondering if the highway was ever going to open.  It never did.  This then sent us into a phone calling frenzy to our travel agent, a travel agent here in Australia, the local airlines, and our insurance company for our trip coverage.  We also had a great deal of help from Glen and his wife who worked the phones here in Busselton trying to come up with options to get us out of the area.  Finally on Sunday afternoon we managed to get a flight by sheer luck with a local air line called Shine air an hour before the plane was scheduled to leave.  We had to dump our rental car at the motel and get a cab to the airport.  Even then as we pulled around the corner onto the road to the airport we were met with a 100m wide river of water across the road the only way to and from the airport.  Several other people were waiting as well to get last minute flights and all had to jump into trucks and Ute's as they are called over here to get across the water to the airport.  Needless to say it was one of the most tense frantic days of our lives.  Here are some pics to help tell the story.

The long lonely road coming down the peninnsula from Monkey Mia.  As you can see it had already started raining a bit.

I forgot to mention that although Australia is stunningly beautiful the flies are absolutely miserable.  They are relentless and the fly nets are a necessity unless you want to go absolutely mad from the constant bombardment.

This is getting close to Carnarvon and you can see the sky is getting more grey all the time.  We are still oblivious to what is in store for us.  Stupid pale people from Canada!!!!









Thursday night when we arrived in Carnarvon Betty and I went for a drive to check out a Mangrove but all we found was wind and torrential rain.  It only got worse from here..................

Downtown Carnarvon Friday the 17th.  We went to get groceries and there were countless areas like this that were covered in water.

Complete boredom in the motel room.  As you can see Kaelyn came prepared with a book. 

Saturday downtown and the water is still rising.  For the most part it stayed relatively the same in town but unknown to us still at this point was the fact that in the outlying areas around the town things were fast disappearing under water and it was all headed our way.  We are now starting to realize that we are not getting out of here anytime soon unless we create our own fate.

This is on a road near the airport which is just to the left.  Can't really tell from this shot but as far as you could see it was covered in water.  This was Sunday morning and the phone calls were fast and frantic by now trying to find a way out!!

This is the only road to the airport.  We were here an hour before this picture was taken and there was no water!!  Kyle and I are in the vehicle in the picture foreground and Betty took this picture from the vehicle she and Kaelyn were in.  Can you say goat rodeo!!







This was our plane out a Navajo Chieftain 8 seater. The other 2 in the picture are 2 other guys who were looking to get the hell out.  Kyle's thinking we are not going to fit in this tin can.  I think the other guys are thinking the same thing.

I'm not sure but I think Kaelyn was checking out the pattern on the ceiling of the plane, or she was thanking the powers that be.   Lots of stress and worry over the past couple of days, perhaps exhaustion.  She's gonna kill me when she sees this.  We were all feeling this way she just expresses it better.












Well we got out of Carnarvon and made it to Geraldton then caught another flight from there to Perth and got another rental car at the airport.  Funny the guy at the rental company never even batted an eye when I told him our first rental was under water!!  We made our way back to Natalie's parents house in Perth.  (Nat is Glen's wife).  Spent the night there and then drove down to Busselton the next day on Monday.  Since arriving in Busselton the news here has been all over the flooding in Carnarvon and the area has been deemed a natural disaster site.  It is the worst flood on record for the area.  Google it and you will see lots more about the area and the flooding.  Front page news down here.  Glad to be back to civilization so on with the holiday!!