Christmas 2008

December 2008

Hi to all our friends and family,

I do hope that my letter finds you all in good health? Thank you for the emails and cards this year, thank goodness for this wonderful technology! Of course Facebook is turning out to be great fun too!

We’re all well and have enjoyed a rather hectic year.

Caitlin and Kelly have finished another year at university, with Kell heading into her 3rd year of a teaching degree, and Cait taking a well earned year’s break from university to join the work force. Of course Kell turned 20 this year so we have entered in a new phase in our lives – No More teenagers in the house. Strange but true, although I have to admit our girls never gave us a tough time through the teenage years so it just seems odd that we have adult daughters. Whilst Rob and I may look old – hell we don’t feel it!!!

Speaking of old... for Rob’s 50th this year he chose to not have a party instead he and I went up the coast Whale Watching. What a wonderful experience. We had the most fantastic day. We stayed at the unit and the next morning got up before the sun and drove up to Hervey Bay. It turned out to be a beautiful clear day and the captain of the boat assured us of spotting a few whales. Well after a couple of hours we had only seen a bit of spray in the distance. The rules are that the boat cannot chase the whales but rather once a whale has been spotted, the captain has to kill the engine and wait for the whales to approach the boat. Well we waited and waited, to no avail, the whales chose to head off in the other direction. After another hour or so of heading further and further out to sea the boat stopped and we spotted 3 whales. They were breaching and it looked like they were having an absolute ball. We all had our cameras out clicking away when we noticed that they were getting closer and closer to us. Eventually all 3 were swimming around, under and alongside the boat. It was the most amazing experience ever!!! They just stayed with us for literally the rest of the day! They were joined later by dolphins whilst in the distance 4 additional whales were yahooing and splashing their hearts out! It was such fun! We had the best day. At one stage the captain of the boat lowered a microphone into the water and a whale immediately swam up to it and looked like it was sniffing it! They were very interested in us all, as they kept bobbing up and staring at us which of course sent us all into a frenzy of mad photo taking!

The whale was so close that I could so easily have lent down and touched it!

The rest of the year was travelling along quietly when on the 16th November we had more excitement than we could have imagined.

Someone was staying in our unit so Rob and I thought that for a change we’d head off south into the mountains for the day. We arrived in beautiful Mount Tamborine in time for a morning cup of tea and wandered from shop to shop getting a bit of early Christmas shopping done. After lunch we headed off looking for a walk in the mountains hoping to find a water hole to cool off. It was an incredibly hot day.

Prior to heading off on our walk we stopped and bought a drink and I overheard a few people talking about an announcement on the radio warning everyone of a rather large storm heading towards the mountain. Well it was really hot and we were desperate for a swim so we continued on our way and found a fabulous spot which was obviously well known to everyone else as it was packed with plenty of youngsters. It’s a relatively innocuous water fall but the fun part is that there are a number of drops so quite a few different pools to swim in.

Well as we scrambled down the rock we heard a bit of thunder rumbling in the background, so we had a quick dip in and out and started back up the mountain. With a light fall of rain followed closely by some rather large hailstones!!!

Ouch not that much fun, mind you all I could think about whilst running up the mountain was the poor young lad behind me whose face happened to be in line with my rather ample bottom!! We made it to the top with only a few dents on the body from the hail, and actually we found the rain so refreshing and cool after such a hot day. We hopped in the car and headed back down the mountain.

On the way home (about an hour and a half’s drive) we both kept an eye on the clouds behind us. They were pretty intense, very black and seemed to be not only following us but it looked like 2 separate storms on either side of us; one from the ocean and one from the mountains.
We made it home and I decided to not get going on chores but to rather have a cup of tea and read the papers.

Well within half an hour Rob called me to look out at the sky. Eeeck it was very black with a very strange band of green lining it. We watched the rain come over our little mountain and then it hit us! Wow!!!!!

It hasn’t been classified as such but the description of the storm has weather aficionado’s calling it a tornado.

Within the first 15 minutes the wind and hail blew out our lounge window.

Consequently the wind was blowing the hail through the lounge and dining room. Our lounge suite and chairs soon had piles of hail sitting in them! With all this happening we decided to head into the kitchen to look out the back at the huge monstrous pine trees. They were bent double in the wind! Well that just freaked us out more! The noise of the wind was so intense, it was very very frightening. But it did eventually stop and I cannot begin to describe to you the absolute devastation it caused in our little suburb. We were cut off from the rest of Brisbane and had to tell Cait and Kell to stay away as all roads in to The Gap were lined with trees and fallen power lines. So many homes and cars were squashed by trees. We realised how incredibly lucky we were. A few of the large trees behind us fell backwards, one partly on to the neighbours roof, another damaging someone’s car and they were all pretty much stuck in their homes as most of the tree debris was across their road.

It looked like we had just survived a bombing. Of course we had no power (for 4 days) and the rain continued to fall, what a mess! The next morning I got up at about 5am and took the dog for a walk.

I was absolutely stunned.

Dixie and I had to hike and climb our way over trees just to get down our road, and when I went around the corner I just saw more trees and cars overturned with trees on houses, people everywhere trying to chainsaw the trees so that the SES could get access to the people who were in dire straits. Gee it was really quite frightening. I came home and told Rob that with our wet furniture, water logged ceilings, broken windows and devastated garden we really had nothing to worry about!
If you’d like to listen to some good ‘ol aussie chit chat and see the storm then head to youtube and type in “Storms in The Gap Brisbane.”
The first one is the best one to watch - I just love the dudes commentating!

Our backyard
The bunya nut pine tree in the neighbours yard

The other pine tree in the road behind us (note all the hailstones)
Rob took this from our roof looking back into our backyard. You can see the tree and all the debris in the neighbours’ road. Plus I thought it’s quite a good one of our new deck – or viewing platform as we like to call it!!

I can tell you that’s enough excitement for us for a few years!! No doubt the endless trail of insurance assessors, builders, plumbers and loss of cars will keep us remembering the great storm of 2008 for quite some time to come.

On that note I might sign off, I do hope that you are all well and that you have a lovely Christmas with your families and I wish an especially happy and healthy new year for us all. We shall be up in Caloundra for Christmas so I will have a wee in the sea for you. We’re then heading down south to Rob’s family for the New Year, where I’m sure the nephews will keep us on our toes!
Lots of love to you all, from us all
Lynn and family
xoxoxoxox