Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Cyclone Yasi - Writing

It's 3:30 in the afternoon on Wednesday and we are lying in bed with books trying to pass the time, occasionally glancing out the floor to ceiling windows that surround us. 80 foot high palms are being beaten by the strong gusts of wind, causing them to sway to 45 degree angles at times. The palm branches that will be strewn throughout the property by morning seem to be holding on for dear life while their coconuts surprisingly stay in place. Our house sits on the very edge of the property before a steep decline to the water. A harbor to our right where Ryan watches the boats (we saw a sailboat get washed onto shore during cyclone Anthony) move with the wind, and islands to our left that are now barely visible due to the current massive wall of rain coming at us. Predictions for up to 3 feet of rainfall here overnight. Yikes.
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Life in Shute Harbor, Queensland - Writing

Shute Harbor, the town in Queensland where we are house-sitting, is not the easiest destination to travel to. There are no direct flights from Perth, forcing us to take a layover in Brisbane. Finding the cheapest flight on the red-eye of course, we flew out around midnight and arrived in Brisbane at 7am. Hearing Brisbane is a great city, and the fact that there is a train that travels from the airport into the city, we thought we would plan a full day to explore, opting for the 10 hour layover. Landing in Brisbane, we were completely exhausted. I guess 6 weeks of drinking and staying up late, followed by a red eye with maybe 2 hours of sleep will do that to you. Well, will do that to us anyway. Deliberating what we should do for a solid 2 hours, part of being a Gladstone I guess, we chose to stick in the airport. Exhaustion and rainy weather made sleeping in the airport quite an easy task and we spent the day taking turns sleeping and reading our books. It was much better than we expected.
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