Day 33 - Gladstone

Just a side Road

I breathed easier today, knowing I wasn’t quite trapped by the flooding. As I write this, the flood waters are rising in Brisbane (expected to peak overnight). I think everyone’s waiting to hear how bad it’s going to get (they say it’s a 100 year event). I went to the grocery store in Gladstone, and there were twice as many bare shelves than the grocery stores in Emerald. I kept overhearing conversations about supply trucks not getting through from Brisbane. What happens when the supply source is under water?

Power Plant

I found a coal-fired power plant off in the distance and couldn’t help a quick detour to look at it. I am a mechanical engineer after all. I thought the cooling tower might be a nuclear reactor. But nope – it was a cooling tower (an impressive one).

I notice more flood damage (mainly to crops), but mostly listened to it all unfold on the national public radio. The Australians sound like pros. They're rallying. Other Australian states and New Zealand are set to provide assistance. The property loss and impact to the Australian economy will be in the billions of dollars. The recovery will take years. There are deaths too. A meteorologist said the root cause for all the rain is warmer ocean temperatures this year. A woman in Moura told me when she was a child they used to get these kinds of floods.

Mud Crabs

Lee (Day 24) told me the aborigine mobs of Darwin go out in the mangroves when the tide’s down and captures big beautiful mud crabs. I found some of those mud crabs at a local fish market here. They look delicious! I’ll only be tasting them in a photographic sense, however.

I love this: You can say “click” for kilometer. E.g. “It’s 10 clicks away.”

There’s 0.62 miles for every kilometer. I convert kilometers (distance) and kilometers per hour (speed) all the time (I just round to 0.6 miles/km) to put it into the miles and the miles per hour I’m accustomed to.

They call a “flashlight” a “torch”. I wonder what they call a torch?

A “butcher shop” is a “butchery”.

I like the balanced way Australia appears to be looking at themselves and the rest of the world. This country feels openminded.

They use round-a-bouts (those circular intersections) extensively. They sometimes add stop lights at the entrances of the big city, busy round-a-bouts.

I had just come through there.

Just Beautiful

Empty Shelves in Gladstone

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Day 33 – Gladstone

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