Leaving Townsville for south of Bundaberg for a few days I thought it would be clever and beat the tropical coastal flood waters by heading west inland towards Charters Towers on the Flinders Hwy. Once there I turned south on the Gregory Hwy heading for Emerald. For a while all seemed to be going well until Clermont, where the weather caught up with me. Showers turned into torrential rain and then the continual downpour followed me all the way into Emerald. With no letup of the rain in sight and darkness approaching I pulled up at a bush camp by the Dawson River for the night.
Despite the all night rain by morning I headed East onto Biloela hoping to get to Gladstone which was only 150km away. However 45km from my destination things began to get very interesting. Heading towards the Calliope River and still on the Dawson Hwy I came across some bridge work with closed and detour road signs. Thinking the detour sign was pointing me around the bridge work I continued down the side track with much trepidation . However before long I found myself heading onto a muddy and slippery swollen river. Jumping out I turning the hubs into 4X4 and managed to climb my vehicle back up the bank just in time lucky to be safe and out of harms way of the flood waters.
With rain still falling and flood waters coming down from every direction I was stopped on the side of the road contemplating my next move when a workman came over to see if he could offer any assistance. I was quite stressed and rather short tempered by my close encounter with the floods and demanded to know why the "detour sign" was still displayed giving people the wrong impression to follow the it. But his reply was rather ambiguous and not forth coming to say the least.
Leaving nothing to chance I turned my vehicle around and travelled the sixty-five km back into Banana where I visited the local Police station. Their suggestion was to to travel down the Leichhardt Highway into Toowoomba as all coastal rivers from Gladstone to Bundaberg were flooded. There is a valuable lesson here in this that although "all roads lead to Rome" it may take one a little longer to get there once the weather comes in hey? Gwynnie For further details see the forum: Gwynnie's travels around OZ
For further details see the forum: Gwynnie's travels around OZ
