We're going to the zoo - 12th Jan

We escaped!!! – it'd rained again over night so we thought we might be stuck but when we woke we heard the roads were completely clear. We were so keen to get away we skipped breakfast and headed straight out of the place. As you can see from the photo the water was completely gone. Even though we'd only been stranded a day it did feel strange returning to civilisation. 

Completely clear

We were planning to fly from Brisbane to Sydney the next day and had booked a night at the YHA in Brisbane. Our initial thoughts were we should head straight for Brisbane as we didn't know what the roads would be like between here and there but we were only an hour or so north of there and only 15 minutes from Australia Zoo so we decided to go to the zoo.

Crikey the Zoo was awesome....just as we expected – lots of crocs everywhere and a big show arena where the trainers got up close to the animals. Steve Irwin's wife and children were performing over January so we got to see Terry Irwin feed the crocs and unfortunately the daughter Bindi perform a song and dance show with the jungle-ettes. (you could tell her mother owned the zoo). The zoo was pretty empty because of the floods and intermittently we still got sudden down pours and had to flee for cover.

 

This was at the entrance



Crikey a croc !!



Warning sign about crocs in the bush

 

 

Brave or crazy ?

Yummy

We left the zoo by 1pm and decided to retrace our steps to Caloundra 15 minutes down the road where we knew there was a McDonalds with free wifi. We wanted to try and check on the situation with the roads.

The roads to Brisbane seemed okay however knowing Brisbane was under flood alert I decided to ring the YHA where we'd booked a night to check they were still open. The YHA was on a hill so we knew there was no risk of flooding and when we rang they said they were still open so we thought we'd head there. Then I logged onto the BBC news website and read the reports about just how bad the risk of flooding was and got spooked …...and that was it we weren't going to Brisbane. I was a bit disappointed with the YHA that they were still encouraging people to come when the news reports were suggesting the waters could get as high as 7m, the CBD was evacuating and the transport system grinding to a halt with the buses not taking people into town just getting them out.

We were wanting to get a flight the next morning and so thought about staying at the airport which was north of the river but when we looked online they were expensive and fully booked. Instead we looked at the next nearest YHA to Brisbane which was in Maroochydore so we called them and there was space.

An hour later we left McDonalds for the 40 minute drive north. Maroochydore is on an estuary and the YHA was literally 100m away from the river. Whilst the woman was showing us to our room Andy asked if they'd experienced any flooding and it was only through prying that the owner mentioned there'd been a knee high flood the day before. We asked if they expected any more floods and they said they weren't sure but possibly. We then started to notice the sand bags by door entrances and agreed that we couldn't take the risk of stopping there with a flight to catch the next morning. The YHA gave a full refund and we called Uncle Mike again to see if we could come back to there's for the night. This meant a longer drive to the airport in the morning but at least we'd feel safe.

When we turned up at Mike and Lyn's house it was such a reassuring feeling after all the deliberations of what to do and where to go and we were so pleased to be there.