Cyclone, flooded in, moved house, new building begun!

So…. a lot has happened since we arrived back in Australia – we’ve been hit by a cyclone, become flooded in, moved house, seen the start of our new build and caught up with family and a few friends (apologies to those we haven’t caught up with yet, we are slowly getting there) – and that’s all happened in the past four weeks!

No wonder the time has whistled by in a blur!

To begin at the beginning – we arrived in Brisbane from The Netherlands right at the end of February. 

It was amazing to be back in beautiful Lake Manchester and to see Ben and Sarah once again! 

We were so happy to be with the dogs, Gidget, the Lorikeet and the ducks and to see Ben and Sarah’s tiny house in its “forever” spot  with a fine new road leading up to it. 

They had hoped that their “bush escape” business would have been up and going by now but the obtaining the correct planning approvals and jumping all the necessary hurdles has proved to be a bureaucratic nightmare. However, after a long haul, they now only have a sewage system to install and one or two small jobs to do and they will be open for business (soon we hope!).

There hadn’t been much rain recently so the land wasn’t looking as green and lush as it normally does but that soon changed!

We had only been in Australia a week when we received the warning that a Cyclone was approaching and for the first time since 1974 this one was heading straight for Brisbane!

Seems almost every time we arrive in Brisbane we usher in an extreme weather situation! We had a bit of warning for this one – on Tuesday 4 March a Watch and Act level warning was issued to the population of Brisbane. The advice was to stay at home and prepare for the cyclone from Wednesday 5 March. 

Cyclone Alfred was a powerful but erratic tropical storm with a mind of its own! For three days we prepared for the worst as the Cyclone moved back and forth off the coast of South East Queensland. 

At Ben and Sarah’s we filled the bath and other containers with water in case we lost power and the water pumps that get the water from the tanks to the house stopped working.

We were perturbed to discover that Ben’s  mighty generator had stopped working. After spending a considerable amount of time troubleshooting, Ben discovered the reason for its malfunction was due to rats nibbling through a cable!

Fortunately Ben managed to fix the generator but more importantly, we didn’t end up losing our electricity, unlike 300,000 homes and businesses who lost their  power – in some cases for days. 

In the end, Cyclone Alfred hit the coast as a weakened system, and become a tropical low shortly before making landfall on 8 March; nevertheless, the immense rainfall brought severe flooding to the region.

Coastal areas were hardest hit by the winds with some big trees coming down and roofs being blown off but thankfully we sustained very little damage at Lake Manchester. 

We were unable to leave the property until the following Friday which meant we had been confined to quarters for nine days. Thankfully with Sarah’s pre cyclone shopping, her special emergency box of packets and tins and long life milk, eggs from their ducks and fresh baked bread and hen’s eggs from Ben and Sarah’s lovely neighbours,  we managed very well. 

Once we were able to cross the flooded causeway we were able to get on with our lives once again.   Jonathan and I had a lot to organise as we are in the midst of having a modular house built!

About a year ago Ben and Sarah proposed that we build a house in a beautiful clearing on their 100 acre property. We were blown away by their generous suggestion and it didn’t take long for us to  agree to this exciting proposition!

We collectively decided that the building should be modular – in the unlikely event Sarah and Ben had to leave the property and sell up in some time the future.

Before leaving Australia last year we had chosen a builder (Hoek Homes), a house style (with some excellent modifications e.g. a large deck, the addition of a car port, a new entry straight from the car port next to the kitchen, and floor to ceiling windows along the side of the living area. )

After a long process we finally received approval from Brisbane Council for the building and had various surveys and soil tests etc conducted while we were overseas (thanks to Ben and Sarah who were able to show the surveyors etc around).

When we first arrived back (before the Cyclone) we visited Hoek Homes and confirmed our colour choices (selecting on line had been tricky as it was hard to tell if everything matched OK) and signed the final contract to give the go ahead to start building!

In the meantime, we have moved back to our small town house near the University of Queensland.  

The last tenants had taken great care of the house and furniture (we had left it furnished rather than continue to pay for storage) and moving in was just so easy!

Our tenants (overseas PhD students) even left us a thank you gift of a quality bottle of wine and delicious chocolates but we thought we were the ones who should feel grateful!

It really felt as though we had just been away for the weekend instead of a year or more. We came back to find everything in its place and the house and yard spick and span!