Cooloola and Katrina

What a week. I don't even know where to begin, except to say that it ended with a flash flood, an evacuation, and lots of soggy gear, passports, cell phones, etc... Anyway! This is where it all started. We drove about 4 hrs north into Queensland to get to Great Sandy National Park, to an area of it called Cooloola (the Aboriginal name for the area-- it is the sound the wind makes as it blows through the trees). We set up camp in an area called 'Harry's Hut' near the Noosa River- a really beautiful place, but with lots of mossy's (mosquitos). Our guide was a famous conservationist of the area- John Sinclair- who now runs his own tour company. (Bush, by the way, is the Australian word for nature/environment/country/outside of town)

This is where we camped...
We had a really great camping trip until the last day. It was our last trip as a group-- we just have a few days now in Byron before we leave for our ISPs until the end of the program-- and John Sinclair is the world expert in camping and set up '3 course meals with wine in the bush'. We made spring rolls, miso soup, caramel grapes...the works. On physical-activity-day of the trip, we canoed a few miles down the river, and then hiked about 6 miles to a sandblow that overlooked the Pacific.


We swam in the river, drank wine at night, it was a good life. Then Katrina hit! The mess started Thursday, when John told us it 'might rain' and so by a miracle of God I translated this into putting my laptop on the bus. Leaving everything in the world at the campsite behind, we left for s trip to this lake and beach. The road out of the campsite was awful and hilariously bumpy to begin with, and we were so far inland that it took us over an hour to get to a main road. At about lunch, it was decided that our trip would be canceled for the day because we needed to head back to camp, pack up, and leave before the road would be flooded out.

This is a picture of Peter testing how deep the water was on the road, right before he decided that we immediately had to turn back and head to the nearest town. He was absolutely correct because in minutes, the rain turned into a storm which turned into a flash flood. All of our things were back at the campsite-- we all literally just had backpacks on us with a water bottle and notebook-- so Peter, John, and they took Alex along went back to the site to try and get the stuff, and get out before it actually got dangerous. We turned around and after almost getting stuck in a different part of the road, heading to the nearest place, which was -obviously- this next picture.

We didn't hear anything about what happened to Peter, John, or Epps and all assumed all of our stuff was gone for good. The next morning we met them at a gas station and heard the story. Turns out our campsite flooded, and after a 3 hr walk to get there, Epps went through the tents salvaging everything he could, though it was all floating in water. They had spent the night up in the bathrooms which were on higher ground, and luckily were able to drive out the next morning. And we got our stuff, even though it was soaked and smelly, and a lot of people lost things like their computers and ipods...

I turned out pretty ok. My journal made it through! Which was what I was most worried about. But I did lose my cell phone, chargers, and my passport is looking pretty rough... but I really can't believe I have my computer and its fine, because it would definitely have been lost if I left it in the tent. What luck.

So now we are back in Byron. We went straight to the laundromat yesterday afternoon and washed everything we owned. And now there are all kinds of problems for people to try and fix. But Wednesday is our final exam and Thursday we leave for our projects, and we are not back until the very end of it all.

So that is the excitement from here. Completely unexpected Katrina-like turn of events. An article on the flooding here and more pictures here: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=32474624&l=7353cf7139&id=9803563