Returning to the Island

After going on a 12 hour flight from Zurich to Hong Kong, a 5 hour layover and then another 9 hour flight to Brisbane… I was pretty buggered. As I couldn’t fly back to Rockhampton that afternoon I stayed the night with some of the Brisbane boys. Thanks to Anthony, Quentin, Jordan and Dom for letting me stay. Somehow I managed to stay awake until around 9.00 at night to try and get my body clock back in sync, at which point I basically passed out.

The next day I caught the tilt train, which was full of people I knew trying to get back home, including my cousin. At this stage I was carrying all my luggage around again and it was terrible. My suitcase was 23kg, my laptop bag 11kg, plus a backpack and I had to carry this all around with a suitcase that wouldn’t wheel. I was glad to hand it all over to the people at QR. The train ride itself was uneventful although it was interesting coming through Bunderburg and seeing how high the floodwaters had risen to.

I had to stay the night in Gladstone, this time thanks to Elise for letting me stay. More waiting around at the Marina, the ferry left around lunch time for Rockhampton. I was surprised at just how many people had taken advantage of the service, it was packed. The trip itself was kind of interesting, we passed through the Narrows and it is easy to see how it got it’s name.

Once we had passed through the narrows and got to the ocean you could see how much flooding there was by looking at the seawater. It was brown and full of all kinds of logs, weeds and other things washed out by the flood water. It was interesting seeing some of the tiny little islands of Emu Park that you can’t see from the mainland. As well as out ferry, there were also 2 more that came from Gladstone with bread trucks on them bringing in supplies that arrived at the same time.

After 5 days of straight travel, the 30min drive from Roslyn Bay Marina to Rocky felt even quicker than normal, and it was an amazing feeling to finally be home and be able to dump all my luggage and catch up with the family and Rachael. Later in the afternoon Rachael and I went to have a look at the flooding that made getting home such a big drama.