We got here in the end

Our long awaited road trip north looked like it may not happen this week. Rain Bombs, east coast lows, catastrophic floods, with major highways impassable - you name it, we timed everything for maximum drama!!

We left Canberra early on Wednesday morning, not feeling all that confident about what the day's drive would bring. It didn't start well either; the drive through Sydney to Heatherbrae was tough with very heavy rain and poor visibility at times.

But we made it through to Coffs Harbour - our first stop on the way north to Queensland. We stayed overnight at Park Beach which was looking worse for wear (like most of the east coast) after being thrashed by rain and storms all week.

But it was our next day's drive that was making us worried! Most of the north east of NSW had been inundated with a "once in a thousand year" rain/flood event from the start of the week - towns were flooded and the highways were cut. We hoped there would be a way through to the Gold Coast by Thursday, but as it turned out there wasn't.'

So we decided to head inland and see if we could find a way north by a more circuitous route!!

We headed west from Coffs, through Grafton, via the mountainous, misty Gwyder Highway....... to Glen Innis (eventually) ...........

Then up the New England Highway, across the NSW - Queensland border to Warwick from where we were able to get onto the Cunningham Highway through to the southern outskirts of Brisbane. We eventually made it on to the M1 heading south to the Gold Coast, our eventual destination. The road in from Warwick had only just opened up so our timing worked well in that instance!

 

The drive from Coffs Harbour to the southern end of the Gold Coast usually takes us less than three hours. We drove for around 9 stressful hours yesterday, as we zigzagged our way across the country heading north (mostly). We loved seeing all that blue clear sky though through those inland highways!

 

We were so happy to finally get to our destination - Kirra Beach, after that exhausting drive.

All week we've been obsessing over such distressing news EVERYWHERE - so many thousands of people affected by catastrophic weather events, wars, invasions ...... it hasn't been the happiest or most relaxing start to our holiday.

But we know are lucky to be here - 11 nights at the (almost) new X Kirra Hotel, opposite the beach, on Musgrave Street.

We woke this morning to another grey day of turbulent looking skies - but that didn't stop us heading out for a walk along the beachfront.

The swell looked pretty rough this morning - so we couldn't quite believe the surfers making their way out to "get amongst it", in these conditions

We walked all the way around to Point Danger this morning, past Coolangatta, Greenmount, Rainbow Bay and Snapper Rocks. Along the way we enjoyed watching this group of boys getting a bit of fun out of the wild conditions.

This afternoon we were able to settle into our 10th floor room, our home for the next 10 nights (our (unplanned) first night was on the second floor). We like the views - especially when the sun came out (somewhat briefly).

Six o'clock on the balcony is the bewitching hour - the lorikeets are in full (noisy) flight and the evening light show is a stunner!

Ros and Pete are arriving tomorrow, so we're ready to have some fun together. They're flying up from Melbourne so will have no flooding dramas. Unfortunately the Internet is down all over this region. Apparently something very important for the Internet is currently under water at Woodburn and the technicians can't get to it because all the roads are cut!! We'll have to get out the books and the playing cards!!