Fish & Chips at Sandgate

Down at Sandgate there is so much debris floating around from the floods these are just some of the things we saw. Quite a few pumpkins, apples, thongs, a mattress, a few chairs, a table (1st picture, it's upside down) paint cans and lots of branches and polystyrene which won't be good for our sea life. The streets and waterways of Brisbane are going to take a long time to get cleaned up.

I took the kids down to Sandgate to have an early dinner of fish and chips (healthy eating starts on the 1st February!!)

During the Brisbane floods the "Drift" restaurant poontoon (aptly named I might add) drifted from it's moorings at Toowong and ended up on the beach at Sandgate. I thought we would take a little drive to get out of the house and take a look and combine it with early dinner.

This is part of the pontoon and there is another piece equally as big.

This is the foreshore at Sandgate where the machinery had lifted the two parts of the "Drift" restaurant's pontoon out of the water. Can I just say the water smell was unbearable at that point so I could just imagine all those houses how bad they would smell with mud throughout. Absolutely horrible!

Still on water

Thankfully the water has started receding in Brisbane and in fact when the people of Rosalie woke today all that water covering their houses was gone. This water comes up through the drains because it has no where else to go when the river is full. There has been a huge clean up team there this morning and they have had plenty of news coverage there today however there are lots of parts of Brisbane still underwater and they have yet to start their clean up. It appears that the Aussie spirit is thriving and everyone is lending a hand or donating money.

On water of a different nature Sienna wanted to do some dishes this morning however it's more about playing with bubbles than doing dishes but all kids love water and she is just like any 4 year old. She was at the kitchen sink for over half an hour having a great time. As you can see she decided to fill up the gloves with water rather than wearing them and when she held up the yellow glove full of water she said "look mum, it looks like a starfish" which indeed it did. Thankful for these precious little moments while there are so many others homeless and some jobless as a result of the 2011 floods.

Today in Brisbane

Today was another day spent glued to the tv with updated news bulletins on the flood situation here. We woke up to a beautiful hot sunny day so the whole thing seemed pretty surreal. I know that word gets used a lot these days but it's as if we are in a time warp or a dream and it's not really a dream, it is actually happening right now. My family members and myself are all safe because we are on high ground however we are only a few kms from Suncorp Stadium which is like a swimming pool today. So in essence while we are not near the floods we are only a few kms away as the crow flies.

The kids and I even had a swim in the pool this afternoon as it's been raining non stop for the past few weeks and it seemed like a good idea since it was so hot to cool off while we could.

The above pictures of the Brisbane river were taken by my sister today looking over towards "Southbank" (the original Expo 88 site) which was redeveloped as parklands.

The two colour photos at the bottom I got off the web and show the Wang Dynasty's Restaurant at Southbank which you can see from Lisa's pictures is half under water already. On the aerial view of Southbank you can see the man made beach which the Brisbane River has now spilled over into it. Also to the right of the beach you can see the Wang Dynasty Restaurant which is that round building near the river.

The ticket office to the Wheel of Brisbane where we were last week is under water and this is probably 200 mts from the waters edge and it's rising. We are no where near the peak yet as it is expected at 4am tomorrow. I think when you turn on your TV's tomorrow morning all will be revealed and we won't believe the pictures we are seeing.

There is an enormous amount of debris floating down the river straight out to Moreton Bay which is not good. In the first photo you can see a pontoon with a boat on it which has been ripped from it's mooring. There are rubbish bins, water tanks and tonight even more worrying was a huge LPG gas tank with a flume of white gas leaking from it hissing away as it floated down the river past Kangaroo Point.

The stories and pictures are like it's from some movie and you still think it's not possible for these things to happen. Brisbane is lucky because we have had time on our hands and people have been evacuating early so people and possessions were safe.

You can't help but watch the tv but on and off during the day I just cried at what some people were going to and the stories they were telling. It's hard not to be affected. It's a bit like the bushfires in Victoria in February 2009 it was so heart wrenching to watch and realize it was happening. All you can do is say a prayer for those people who have lost loved ones and of course people without homes to go back to. Their whole lives have been turned upside down.