Living in the path of a natural disaster

As most of you know South East Queensland has recently been devastated by the worst floods in over 30 years. Thousands of homes in Brisbane and its surrounding suburbs and towns went under - not a little bit, not just a damp carpet but houses and businesses covered up to and over their roofs, people trapped & drowned in their homes and cars picked up and swept away by the torrents.

I've never lived through a natural disaster before and I never want to again. Everyone was glued to televisions, radios or the internet getting the latest information and over three days the river just kept on rising, and when it seemed like it had reached higher than you could ever imagine it rose some more. And it wasn't just properties next to the river that went under. As the water rose on the river it also rose through the storm drains, so anywhere that was under the level of the river went under. Properties, entire suburbs a mile or more from the river were unexpectedly submerged.

The rivers dropped as quickly as they rose and sometimes now it's almost impossible to belive that it happened. Until you turn down the wrong street and see the empty gutted houses where everything not moved had to be thrown out, peoples entire lives piled up on the kerbside covered in a rotting brown sludge waiting to be chucked into a truck & dumped. 146,000 tonnes of rubbish was picked up in the two weeks after the flood, 146,000 tonnes of memories will be buried in landfill.

One good thing to come out of all of this was the community spirit, the Queensland spirit. On the first weekend it seemed like the entire population of Brisbane turned out to help. People flocked into the affected suburbs and walked through the streets asking every homeowner what they could do. Those that couldn't lift, dig or sweep made sure that everyone was well fed - I could have eaten my weight in sausage in bread every day.

However now it's happening again. Brisbane may be safe and starting a long road to recovery but elsewhere in the state a cyclone is bearing down on the Far North Queensland coast. A cyclone is the southern hemisphere version of a hurricane and this one, a category 5 cyclone due to hit land in a few hours, is forecast to be bigger than Katrina. Winds will reach almost 300km/h (almost 200 miles/hr), waves will be over 12m high, flood tides will be upto 6m higher than a normal high tide and rainfall could be up to 1000mm (over 3 ft) in 24 hrs. This could potentially decimate large parts of the coastline and destroy entire towns or even cities like Cairns. It's forecast to hit towns 400km inland with the power of a category 3 cyclone, where winds are expected to 'only' hit 100 miles/hr. And those towns are not built to cope with that.

All we can do is hope and pray that somehow the power drops as we watch the horror show being played out before us. This country is tough, this country can make you work to live here. It's no wonder that 'mateship' is an intrinsic part of being an Australian. We're a long way from help down here if it goes tits up, and if you don't all watch out for each other you've got no hope.

Wheelbuilding

The crazy weather we've been having recently has been keeping anyone sane inside, but that does mean that there's been more time to spend on bike maintenance. I did something I've always been scared of over the weekend - built my first wheel. I started off with this
and after some time and surprisingly little swearing I ended up with this

At this point it was only half done as the spokes were loose. I gradually tightened everything up over the weekend - a turn on each spoke and then a straighten, another turn, another straighten. With plenty of walking away when I felt myself getting frustrated.
Now it seems to be reasonably consistently taught and it's as straight as a die. Although the real test is in the riding - is it built well enough to stay straight as the wheel comes under tension & compression? And if not, will I even ride enough to find out?
Of course the other question is what's it for. Isn't it Gordy :)

My body is a temple

As I mentioned the other day, I'm still a bit queasy from a xmas bug. It's not been helped by work, where I've unexpectedly been given a three day training course to give with no real warning. Still, I soldier on stoically.

One important thing when you're a little under the weather is to eat healthily. Fortunately with the surfeit of fresh local produce in Australia good food is easy to come by.

And nothing screams 'fresh local healthy produce' like a chicken jalfreizi jaffle* and a bottle of 4x gold.

Once you've opened up the jaffle you can even poke in bits of poppadum for the truly authentic dining experience.
*Translation note -jaffles are toasted sandwiches made in a 'jaffle iron' - what would be known in the UK as a sandwich toaster.

Happy New Year!

Well xmas & new year are done & dusted, and it's back to everyday life tomorrow. We had a quiet but a mainly good holiday period - on xmas eve we cooked a very large ham


on xmas day we had a great lunch with my partners family, then went home and watched it rain

The rain kept up for the next four days, although in the brief pauses between showers we used the local park to keep cool

There was a break in the rain whilst I went back to work and then on New Years Day it returned, putting paid to our idea of heading up the coast for a New Years Day playing in the waves. Although in truth that didn't really matter as we were both suffering from some kind of bug

With both of us heading back to work tomorrow we both now feel OK, and the weather looks better. Isn't that typical?
Incidentally we finished the ham. I've had too many weeks of good living (& ham) and my weight has reached over 80kg, so it's time to get fit again. Not a new years resolution, just the desire to not be a fat bugger any more......

Watching it rain...

A combination of slowly-dissipating lethargy and bad weather has been keeping me inside recently. Which has been bad for my ever-increasing waistline but good for my brewing - I get bored easily so need to keep doing things to keep myself busy, and beer is a gift that keeps on giving.

Last week I made a strong wheat beer, and after bottling off a few bottles this weekend to see what it would be like 'neat' I added a gallon of watermelon juice to the secondary.

How do you get a gallon of watermelon juice? With a blender, a sieve and lots of watermelon of course...fortunately sold over here at 69 cents per kg for seedless...


It does lead to a bit of a messy kitchen
but mopping it all up gives me something to do for the rest of the day. And of course is something that I feel is essential and not something I'm made to do because I made a mess. Honest.

What's the point? Well I'm hoping that the watermelon will add a fruity depth of flavour to the beer. Plus of course dumping a load more sugar gives the yeast something else to munch on, which will produce a stronger brew.

Unfortunately the temperatures up here are a bit high for good fermentation. Too high a temperature can lead to over-active yeast and the production of different types of alcohol molecule which can add strong flavours to the beer. So I have to use evaporative cooling (also known as 'a damp towel') to keep the beer as cool as possible. It's not ideal, but there's not much else I can do as installing aircon is a bit over the top for the garage. I'd want to put it in the flat first.

I also made an IPA a couple of weeks ago with so much hops in it that it wouldn't pass through the siphon tube. I've bottled about a quarter of this but you can see the three remaining demijohns awaiting bottling under the table. Not sure if I went over the top on this one - it tasted overly resiny during the bottling, so I think I'll need to let it sit for a few months to allow the hops to mellow out. That will also give me time to empty a few of my existing bottles...

Let's hope the rain keeps up.

Summer storms

Summer means storms in Queensland, and this summer looks to be a good one for bad weather. Today golf-ball sized hail stones fell across parts of SE Qld, and this is just the start of the season.
It also leads to some spectacular clouds
A zoom lens can lead to some great pictures
and a sunset setting on your camera accentuates the reds

I think this setting should be called 'sunset / post-apocalyptic', and marketed at people wanting to illustrate stories of the rapture.

Hug my fat sweaty body!!!

It's been incredibly wet over the last few weeks and I think that's dampened everyones spirits. The sun came out yesterday and Brisbane hit 30 degrees for the first time since April - it's been the coldest spring for a very long time. But now the clouds have come again, and in the tropics a cloudy sky just means more humidity. It may only be 28 degrees but that is everywhere - in the open, in the shade, in the flat, in bed. And the humidity is up at 70 - 80%, so it's like living in a sauna but without the Finnish chicks beating you with birch branches. With no air conditioning we have fans running constantly and shower three or four times a day to keep cool. It's not as bad as it will be though, because I'm still turning on the hot tap a little. In the middle of summer you only use the cold tap, and you let it run a little while first to let the warmed-up water in the pipes clear.

Sorry anyone in the UK reading this, I hope you're staying warm as best you can!