The past two weeks have been wet and windy. I spent Christmas at Bargara, which is a beachside town near Bundaberg, and there was so much wind that the surf lifesavers were warning people not to swim at the beach. Luckily there's a lagoon thing just beside the beach so we could swim in there without fear of being caught in a rip and dragged out to our death. It was a huge family Christmas, the first we'd had since 1999 according to my uncle, which is why I trekked all the way back from the UK to be here. I'm glad I did, it was really nice. We were all staying at holiday units by the beach, and it was very bizarre to be sleeping on a bunk bed in a small cottage with both parents, both sisters, my brother and my future brother-in-law. Staying in adjacent cottages were my uncles, aunts, cousins and second cousins. I must be getting old and nostalgic, because I actually enjoyed the family-ness of the whole thing. Plus I got to feed grapes to a friendly possum I named Flopsy. You can't fault a holiday that involves playing with a possum.
The wild weather continued when I arrived back in the Sunshine Coast. The rain was unrelenting, the wind reaching speeds of up to 100km/hr at one point. Beaches were closed and the New Year's Eve fireworks cancelled due to the danger of debris being blown into buildings (or people) and starting spot fires. This is a photo of the view from my sister's house on New Year's Day. As if everyone wasn't feeling yucky enough. And for the benefit of my UK readers, the sky is not supposed to be grey and palm trees are not supposed to lean over like that. The cause of all this chaos was a low pressure system meandering down the coast. While the hard-core surfers were overjoyed with the wicked waves, the surf lifesavers and police were going nuts. Twenty-five beaches were closed, lifesavers were being flipped out of their rescue boats and having to be rescued themselves, and police were called to beaches to stop people entering the treacherous waves. There were stories on the news of young, reckless, inexperienced body boarders and surfers getting rescued and then running back in the surf laughing. Idiots.
It wasn't until Saturday that the weather cleared up. This was just in time to annoy my sister, who returned to work on Monday after spending all but the last weekend of her holidays hiding from the abysmal weather indoors. Whereas I, the pale elder sibling, would be relatively content with grey skies protecting me from the evil sun, I'm now the one free to frolic on the beach all day long. Of course I'm not actually doing that, I'm just sitting indoors sweating. It is hot, hot, hot.
I did take the opportunity of seeing blue skies for the first time in three weeks to go wandering along the 'sunshine strip' between Mooloolaba and Maroochydore. I walked up to Alexandra Headland, plonked myself under a shady tree and watched some pelicans fighting over fish scraps. In a brief burst of youthful energy I decided to climb up the tree as well. I used to love climbing trees as a child. I loved climbing this tree as well, but noticed it was a litttttle bit harder to stretch my legs up to the next branch than it was when I was ten. I think I need to do yoga or something. Maybe I could add that to my ever-expanding list of new year resolutions.
The past two weeks have been wet and windy. I spent Christmas at Bargara, which is a beachside town near Bundaberg, and there was so much wind that the surf lifesavers were warning people not to swim at the beach. Luckily there's a lagoon thing just beside the beach so we could swim in there without fear of being caught in a rip and dragged out to our death. It was a huge family Christmas, the first we'd had since 1999 according to my uncle, which is why I trekked all the way back from the UK to be here. I'm glad I did, it was really nice. We were all staying at holiday units by the beach, and it was very bizarre to be sleeping on a bunk bed in a small cottage with both parents, both sisters, my brother and my future brother-in-law. Staying in adjacent cottages were my uncles, aunts, cousins and second cousins. I must be getting old and nostalgic, because I actually enjoyed the family-ness of the whole thing. Plus I got to feed grapes to a friendly possum I named Flopsy. You can't fault a holiday that involves playing with a possum.
The wild weather continued when I arrived back in the Sunshine Coast. The rain was unrelenting, the wind reaching speeds of up to 100km/hr at one point. Beaches were closed and the New Year's Eve fireworks cancelled due to the danger of debris being blown into buildings (or people) and starting spot fires. This is a photo of the view from my sister's house on New Year's Day. As if everyone wasn't feeling yucky enough. And for the benefit of my UK readers, the sky is not supposed to be grey and palm trees are not supposed to lean over like that. The cause of all this chaos was a low pressure system meandering down the coast. While the hard-core surfers were overjoyed with the wicked waves, the surf lifesavers and police were going nuts. Twenty-five beaches were closed, lifesavers were being flipped out of their rescue boats and having to be rescued themselves, and police were called to beaches to stop people entering the treacherous waves. There were stories on the news of young, reckless, inexperienced body boarders and surfers getting rescued and then running back in the surf laughing. Idiots.
It wasn't until Saturday that the weather cleared up. This was just in time to annoy my sister, who returned to work on Monday after spending all but the last weekend of her holidays hiding from the abysmal weather indoors. Whereas I, the pale elder sibling, would be relatively content with grey skies protecting me from the evil sun, I'm now the one free to frolic on the beach all day long. Of course I'm not actually doing that, I'm just sitting indoors sweating. It is hot, hot, hot.
I did take the opportunity of seeing blue skies for the first time in three weeks to go wandering along the 'sunshine strip' between Mooloolaba and Maroochydore. I walked up to Alexandra Headland, plonked myself under a shady tree and watched some pelicans fighting over fish scraps. In a brief burst of youthful energy I decided to climb up the tree as well. I used to love climbing trees as a child. I loved climbing this tree as well, but noticed it was a litttttle bit harder to stretch my legs up to the next branch than it was when I was ten. I think I need to do yoga or something. Maybe I could add that to my ever-expanding list of new year resolutions.
1 comment:
Hahaha! Your not getting older Frankie. You are just finding value in things that you didn't previously think about much.
I had a similar experience over Christmas when I was sitting in my empty apartment thinking about how much I'd like to be 20,000km's closer to home with friends and family.
- Scotty
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