Page 189 - Mit dem Wohnwagen durch Australien 2

The police warn via Radio from entering the swirling stream. Not only are there unknown holes in the ground there
are also venomous snakes, rats, debris and dead cattle in the stream. We keep listening to alarming news of the
rise of the waters via the radio and hear that we are all evacuated from the caravan park. Oh? Not that we knew
anything about that. We are still here. Six people really would like to go to the Civic Centre. They have run out o food
and are in a tent, but nobody comes with the promised boat to their rescue. Later we hear that the SES rescue boat
has capsized with a TV crew on board and is out of service. The TV guys were able to hold on to the hull of the boat
and were rescued by a police helicopter. A helicopter lands next door and gets two exhausted people on board.
They have lost their house and came by boat as far as they dared before the eddies became too strong. Finally an
SES helicopter lands in the campground and gets a lady and her two poodles out. I ask the policeman if they also
take the stranded English gentleman without food. But they are only taking emergencies he says, they have no time
to get people who are high and dry. We decide that we will all feed him and invite him for meals. The camp
managers kindly let him stay in one of the cabins. It later transpires that the poodle lady only faked the emergency
in order to get the flight out to Perth. She left her caravan behind but will find that, when she comes back, she will not
be welcome anymore. We walk up the hill to the huge communication satellite dish which helped to put the man in
the moon. Its last task was to help locate Halley ’s Comet in 1987 then it was shut down. We climb up to the platform
and have a stunning view. Brown water interspersed with ruined Banana and Mango plantations all the way to the
horizon. Towards evening the waters stagnate at a very high level. We move back to our original sites and go to bed
in the hope of a deep undisturbed sleep.

Day 4, December 21, 2010
Our slumber is suddenly disturbed by the loud whirring of a landing helicopter right next to us. A TV crew from
Channel 7 is descending on us. When I ask them if they have brought food, they claim, that the shops in Carnarvon
were not open yet. During the night two flights have brought sorely needed provisions into town, nothing has reached
us here yet. Later 10 loaves of bread and 10 containers with perishable fresh milk are brought by a large Road
repairing machine. Does not go very far, but it is a start. The water is receding and some relief is noticeable
throughout the camp. Some of us tackle the task of cleaning up Lois’s and Stephen’s, the managers, home. About
10 cm of water have wrecked havoc. I am commissioned to clean out the kitchen cupboards. Luckily Lois has a lot
of her stuff in watertight containers, but still some things have to be binned. The floor is as slippery as an ice rink
with the very fine red silt. TV, Radio etc. and a lot of the furniture is a write off. So is the kitchen combination and
some of the plywood walls, they are starting to swell up due to the humidity. Fortunately the large fridge and stove
were just out of the reach of the waters. At lunchtime Jane and Anna have prepared a lovely lunch for the cleanup
crew, consisting of all and everything which had to be used. The large freezers some of the permanent campers
have, had to be cleared out, because they thawed out without power. SES does not consider us first priority. The
Camp got denied a large generator and food supplies. We are happy that we can see the water receding quite fast.
Towards evening the stream over the road is only about 1 m deep. The first looters have been spotted, their target
the gas stations and a banana plantation opposite the campground. They were shooed off by vigilant campers. We
invite the foodless Englishman and Aernscht and Susann, two Swiss which are camping here also, for dinner. Chris,
the Englishman manages to bring two half empty bottles of wine to dinner, which he got from some locals. Very nice.

Day 5, December 22, 2010
The water has sunk to less than a meter on the road. Again we got awakened at 6 am by reconnaissance helicopters
who want to see sleeping Caravaners from very close. Steve and some campers have sneaked into town and get
some gas for the generators. Steve has managed to cadge a genny and we are allowed to draw some power from
it. Our leisure battery was very low and we were in peril to lose the light and radio in the caravan. We still cannot run
the aircondo, the fridge or the microwave, but at least the TV is running again and we can load our PCs and
telephone.

Since I have anAustralian phone, I have been asked the loan of it. Linda, an aboriginal woman who is stranded here
on the way to a meeting of their land corporation and a family funeral forgot to recharge her phone and needed to
call the different parties, that she could not attend, a German traveller wanted to inform a family member at the other
side of Australia were they were. My new job here: phone provider.

Some campers venture out and try to go shopping in town. They come back with some fuel and some fresh goods,
but also with the news, that the police are still blocking the road and they almost did not let them back to the
campground. Our Troopy is due for a service in town tomorrow, so we will try to go in tomorrow morning early and
already have shopping lists for all the German speaking campers from Austria, Germany and Switzerland.