Wednesday, 6 March 2013
Whitsunday Coast > Brisbane
For much of the day before, this looked like an increasingly unlikely conveyance, though things came together rather nicely in the end. I'd predicted a late Wet, what with the concert plans and all, and we'd have been in rather a nice pickle if I hadn't run into The Dragon Lady at the Post Office and learned that:
- She and Warbo were flying south on the same Flight I was on the next day, and Warbo had to head down to Prossie that afternoon to pick up friends who were flying north on the afternoon Virgin service. Subsequent negotiations had Madam driving the three of us to the airport in the morning and at that point everything looked hunky dory.
That lasted until The Dragon Lady called to advise that the Virgin flight hadn't landed, and Warbo was wending his way homewards across flooded roadways. Not quite time to hit the panic button, but not far off it.
A subsequent call from Warbo was a little more reassuring, since we were now in the position where he had to use their car to go down and pick yesterday's passengers up. We'd just alight at the airport and there was no need for Madam to drive anywhere. Questions about water across the road revealed that, yes, there was, but it wasn't too deep, and it had been high tide when Warbo was heading back. As long as the rain cleared we'd probably be right.
Half an hour later there was a text from Jimbo, advising that the highway was closed at Goorganga Flats and Lethe Brook, and a check of the 131940 website confirmed the alleged fact.
Tuesday night wasn't quite sleepless, but failed to deliver significant rainfall, and checks on the Internet revealed the morning Virgin flight had departed, so it seemed reasonably safe to assume the Jetstar equivalent would do the same. Warbo was on the doorstep just after eight-thirty and we were off, quietly confident, since Warbo had been across the ground the day before and seemed to have a reasonable grasp of the coincidence of tempest, time and tide.
On the way down there was plenty of water lying around, squalls away on the mountains behind Hydeaway Bay and Dingo Beach, and weather clearing across the flats, so we made our way to and through Proserpine without drama, headed across the Goorganga Flats and over Lethe Brook, noting sheets of water that were, according to Warbo considerably lower than the equivalent journey yesterday afternoon, and a fair bit lower than they'd been when he made his way back to Bowen an hour or so later. The flight had been on final approach when the pilot decided the visibility wasn't good enough, lifted the nose and took the bird back to Sydney. In the meantime the waters had risen considerably, and fifty metres with a bit of water over the road had turned into half a kilometre with a fair bit more.
In the morning, on the other hand, the tide had dropped, much water had flowed across what amounted to the dam wall, and there hadn't been enough rain to top it up, so we were straight through, mad the rendezvous and checked in without incident. I managed to wangle it so the three of us were seated together, which made for someone to talk to on the way, and once we made our way through the security scanning we found there were plenty of people to talk to while we were waiting.
They came in the form of a former deputy principal at Proserpine State, a former colleague and husband and a former Whitsunday cricketer I'd taken away to the Towers in '98 or thereabouts in what was the last hurrah of Hughesy's coaching career.