A New Year. A New Adventure,
Letter From The Other Side; from Cynthia No 1 2011


Dear Del,
To begin my first letter of 2011 after such a tumultuous start to our country’s year is difficult. Where does one begin?

Should it start with the torrential tropical rains and humidity which reached thousands of kilometres to the south bringing enormous butterflies and a few birds we rarely see? Then as people raised their periscopes to view a land which at this time of year should be waving fields of golden grain, green orchards laden with fruit, bananas, mangoes and busy tourist towns full of gallivanting and frolicking tourists, the periscopes instead showed them a very different view.

The raging floods eventually covered a part of Queensland an area the size of Germany and France. For Queensland, that is not such a large chunk of their total land area but to those affected and the rest of the nation, it is a very vital area because it contains the beautiful city of Brisbane and the food bowl of the Lockyer Valley.

We have heard and seen the stories of tragedy and sudden death, the heroism of ordinary people; such as the man who stood on a railway bridge and caught a woman being washed down the river as she balanced precariously on her car’s roof. She jumped into his arms and he ran from the bridge before it was washed away. His reaction wasn’t to brag of his bravery but sorrow at not being able to save her husband.

There were the helicopter pilots who risked their lives flying at night amid live electricity wires as they used torches or any light available to rescue forty-two people from their roofs.
There was an elderly fellow who saw the plight of some thoroughbred horses and cattle frantically swimming and trying to gain a footing onto a tiled homestead roof. He took his small dingy out into the torrent to bring the injured and terrified animals to safety. He and the owner of the animals had never met before the flood, but are now firm friends.

People from safe areas gave homes to animals from pet shelters and to those who were at risk in their own home or paddocks.
Strangers helped strangers, giving beds and food to those whose homes had been swept away or made uninhabitable.

As the flood subsided, leaving many thousands of kilometres of roads damaged, bridges wrecked, coal mines flooded and industries large and small ruined…who amongst us will forget the sight of the riverside restaurant floating down the river and being crushed by the bridge, taking with it the sixty thousand dollar grand piano to the bottom?

Amongst the tragedy there was the humour of people standing in a metre of filth in their front gardens remarking about it being the first time they had experienced waterside views.

As soon as it was possible, an army of people arrived equipped with shovels, trucks, anything that may be useful to help remove the stinking poisonous silt lying in a thick layer over everything. They came by canoe, bicycle, bus, even surf boards. Bakers brought free bread; others brought freshly prepared food from their own kitchens if they were lucky enough to have power. The local politicians rolled up their sleeves and got to work, carrying sandbags giving a hand where they could. People did anything they could to enable them to assists the massive effort which will be needed to put some semblance of normality back into their towns and city.

Where does one begin? As one man said, ‘Just get stuck in mate and work.’ said another.
The army moved in to help and a navy mine sweeper is working in Morton Bay, which is a marine sanctuary, trying to locate hazards such as trucks, shipping containers, sunken yachts and enormous amounts of household goods.

Queensland isn’t the only state to have suffered this year. Western Australia also experienced vast floods, taking peoples homes, stock and livelihoods and in the south others suffered the scourge of our southern summers and lost their homes in bushfires.

Here in Victoria, our valley has been beset by a mould which has devastated the ten million dollar chestnut harvest and in other places locusts moved methodically devouring the first few green tinges of the best crops farmers had grown after eleven years of drought.

Now, following heavy rain in Victoria, there is a stinking black sea of water fifty kilometres wide and ninety kilometres long sweeping across the flat plains of the west, taking everything before it.
The smell from rotting vegetation, dead stock and wildlife can be smelt by the journalists as they fly over to make their reports. To walk or venture into this thick foul liquid is taking your life in your hands because of its toxicity.

Today, it is forty-one degrees Celsius and it will help to dry some of it up but the land will remain waterlogged and possibly toxic for a long time. Organic farmers will be devastated. The rivers will run with the toxic water for a long time resulting in the death of millions of aquatic creatures and give mosquitoes the opportunity to breed in clouds, potentially carrying disease such as Ross River virus.

As I write this letter, there is the biggest cyclone Australia has ever experienced bearing down on one thousand kilometres of Northern Queensland’s coast. It is expected to affect an enormous area inland as far as Broken Hill. The storm surge alone is expected to be up to nine metres high is some low lying areas. All patients in the hospitals in Cairns are being evacuated south and a large proportion of the population of the state has been told to move to safety while they can. Children have been evacuated south and once again people are trying to save animals. Everyone is battening down and waiting to see what Yasi, as the cyclone is named, is brewing up for them. Airports will be closed and emergency teams and volunteers are being prepared all over the country. It is too late for people to make the decision to move out now.
As their courageous and stoic state premier Anna Bligh said yesterday, ‘We are in for a terrifying twenty hours. Someone seems to have a grudge against us this year.’

A tourist remarked to one journalist that, ‘It seemed kind of exciting to stay’ I have a feeling if she survives, she will not want to be so excited again.

One sensible lady was roasting a leg of lamb while she still had the power and time to do it.
It’s a harsh land we live in and to add salt into the wounds, those rotten Poms took the ashes from us! There’s no justice at times is there?

I have to grudgingly admit they have been very generous with their donations to the flood relief and I was amazed the Brisbane grounds actually dried out enough for them to play a match there.

I also think that if the selectors; using the revolving door policy they seem to have adopted with their team selections, had chosen eleven grandmothers from a few local retirement villages, the old girls couldn’t have played any more ineffectually than our team did at times.
I might try out for wicket keeper next year. Not much gets past me.

I’ll be in touch after Yasi, passes through and we have all stopped worrying about and for the people of Queensland.
Keep the shutters down, during the heat,

Your wilting ‘flower child friend’
Cynthia.