So that's why they call it the "wet season"...

26/12/2010 to 28/12/2010

I thought I knew why it was called the “wet season” already, considering the huge amount of rainwater I absorbed along the first month and a half’s worth of riding.  Nope.  Not even close.  The next three days of riding blew everything I’d ever seen out of the water.  Now, of course it was raining when I put my butt back on that bike seat on Boxing Day.  Instead of writing about when it rains during a travel day, I’ll assume you bunch are smart enough to take that as a given; and I’ll start telling you when it isn’t raining.

The 6 hour ride back to Yamba was wet.  Let’s get that past us right now.  Everyone at the hostel was in typical post-Christmas comatose mode.  There was apparently a huge party for the backpackers there, and most of the people there were in their second day of hangover.  So it was thankfully a quiet night, which was needed after my Christmas and the ride to Yamba.  While I was checking in, one of the hostel owners mentioned to me that there was some serious flooding going on in Queensland which, to be honest, I hadn’t heard a word about.  No doubt I’d be able to get to Noosa the next day, but I spent the next several hours scouring the net for road closures.  Of course, my next port of call after Noosa was Rockhampton (at the time of writing still underwater); it looked like all of the roads to the south were already cut off, and I’d be lucky to get to the Whitsundays for Valentine’s Day, let alone New Year’s Eve.  There wasn’t much I could do at this stage but be prepared for some creative re-routing after I hit Noosa.

The next day I swear, between my jacket, gloves, and person, I sucked up a good 8 inches of rainwater.  Now I understood why the hostel owner was doubtful I’d make it to the Whitsundays for NYE, and I also understood why it was called the wet season.  Not that it was coming down any harder than I’ve seen in the past, but it was consistent.  Not like the summer thunderstorms of Houston or south Florida, where it comes and goes and all you’re left with an hour later is a steam bath.  This was open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, thank-you-come-again precipitation.  On top of this, the traffic on either side of Brisbane was atrocious, and I had to filter through lanes in order to save a good hour of drive time.  I didn’t make any friends in the process, but I just couldn’t take sitting on my bike, going nowhere, sucking up water like a brand new sponge.

Like in Yamba, the first thing I did in Noosa was check the road conditions.  Luckily, it looked like the main road leading into Rockhampton from the south was tentatively open, so the sun was shining (figuratively only) on my New Years plans.

Of course, the sun didn’t shine a lick the next day.  In fact, December 28th was just about the most miserable travel day I’ve had so far.  I’m up already at 6am and debate getting out of bed and riding on; but the reception at the hostel (who is in possession of my $20 key deposit) doesn’t open until 8am, so I turn over and get a few more winks.  In hindsight, getting out of bed then and there probably would have made the day less bad…not better, just less bad.  The rain was coming down worse than I’d ever seen it.  I took a picture of myself in the mirror, and I hope it captures the “wet cat” feeling coursing through my veins at the time.  On the bike finally, it’s like I’m going through the car wash at 80mph, again, and again, and again.  I just can’t take it much longer and stop off  in a town called Gympie for McDonalds.  The news is just about entirely dedicated to the flooding in Queensland, and I get a feeling this isn’t going to be a great day after all.  After my breakfast and coffee, it was back outside into the shower.

I’m a firm believer that any transportation minister / official should drive his or her own roads.  If the person responsible for roads in Queensland would bother to drive on the Bruce Highway north of the Sunshine Coast (coincidentally where most of the funding for the state stops), he or she would have no other choice but to commit hara-kiri.  The Bruce Highway, for those ladies and gentlemen who do not know (or who haven’t Wikipedia’d it already) is a 1,000+ mile long highway that connects Brisbane, the state capital of Queensland in the southeast, with Cairns in the far north.  It is the biggest traffic carrier in Queensland and arguably the economic spine of the state.  Without it, farmers have no means to sell their crops, miners have no place to send their ore, and road trains largely cease to exist (which wouldn’t be such a bad thing for a motorcyclist).  It also happens to have the largest number of potholes per mile, according to my own thorough study.  The Bruce Highway is more of a very long, informal slalom course than it is a public road.  These potholes often swallow men whole.  They take up entire lanes.  They ruin car and motorcycle rims alike, and they are not fun.  They are made worse in the rain, when you can’t tell the difference between tarmac and a slightly different-colored surface whose size, depth, and volume rivals the Caspian Sea.  You only tell the difference after you’ve come out of it with substantially fewer teeth.  This, ladies and gentlemen, is the Bruce Highway.  The biggest traffic carrier in Queensland.

About another hour up the road I hit a town called Maryborough.  I know something is wrong when I filter past the two mile long column of standing vehicles and ride past a “road closed” flashing sign.  Once at the front, I’m turned away, the man saying the service station is already full, and I’d have to find a place to wait back in town.  He was obviously working off a script, because he had no clue how much water was over what road, and that there’s no way a service station the size of three football fields can be “full”.  It just takes a bit of creativity in finding (or rather making) a parking spot.  Hanging out, not necessarily drying out, at the service station, I overhear some people saying it might take 12-24 hours for the road to re-open.  Great.  No New Years Eve in non-wet places.  I walk back across the road, this time to a different person in an orange jumpsuit – this time to the one who seems to be letting traffic through like he’s a green light.  Oh, and I walk past a news crew who asks if I’m going to walk the entire way across the blocked road.  I find out that the road is actually closed a few kilometers up, and I can ride through if I’m careful.  Careful I’m not at this stage – more like desperate to get as far away from this place, as quickly as possible – so I proceed on my merry way as each individual car, for more than a few miles back now, is given the same instructions to turn back.

Up to the actual road block was OK.  There were two creeks that were no more than six inches over the road, but nothing I’d call serious.  Finally I hit the actual roadblock and wait…and wait…and wait…I made friends with the roadblock-er, a road technician (the guy who fills in all the potholes – and let me tell you he makes a KILLING) named Wayne.  He invites me into the big truck where I can dry off, which was a really nice gesture.  Looking back, he would have been an ass not to have offered me a seat in the van, because we were waiting there for five hours until the road finally opened up.  In that time, I made new friends, learned new words (not nice ones), and had fascinating conversations about road construction.  I even met a truck driver for the first time, and all those myths about truck drivers being insane people on acid or speed are totally and entirely founded.  Who’d a thunk it?  Seriously though, this guy was about 6’2”, weighed at least 300lbs and probably hadn’t slept in three days but was as hyper as a 5 year-old not taking his Ritalin.  As we left, he charged to the front in his massive 18-wheeler, passing cars and caravans with reckless abandon.  Oh, and the two creeks no more than six inches over the road that I passed?  Try two feet now.  I was seriously lucky to be getting past, as the roads people only opened up that particular roadblock (not the first one I rode past), and only in the northbound direction.  If I hadn’t gotten past then, I would probably still be stuck there now, and that isn’t an exaggeration of how bad the situation is.

I rode on to Rockhampton, miraculously, despite all predictions that it would be underwater.  News still is that it should be inundated within the next day or two, so I decide to ride on (this is at 10pm already) and find a place to stay overnight somewhere away from the city.  Well, I can tell any prospective road-trippers that there is absolutely no accommodation between Rockhampton and Mackay (a 255km drive).  None.  Bupkis.  Just dark, rainy, truck-infested roads.  And more potholes.  In the dark.  So this has turned out to be one of those Virginia-to-Texas, 18 hour drive days.  I woke up around 7am, and for those interested, finally got to sleep around 2am in a town called Mackay.  I actually felt bad for waking up the motel manager, but they were really nice and told the housecleaning crew to do my room last so I could get a decent night’s sleep.

This was my day.  How was yours?

On a serious note, for those who are living under a massive rock, the flooding in Queensland is a very dire situation.  More than 200,000 people are affected in an area larger than Germany and France put together.  Entire towns have been evacuated, and some are expected to be cut off or isolated for at least another several weeks.  Serious and unrelenting rain is forecast for the entire Queensland region until March or April, in is already the worst La Niña season since 1973.  The government has come out and estimated total damage in the region of $5bn, including personal and property damage, livestock, ruined crops, and mining losses; but officials still cannot fully assess infrastructure damage, as roads and railroads lie underwater, likely washed away.  People who live and depend on this region will not be able to expect “normalcy” for several months, and some farmers will be years without decent harvests.  This is not a cry for donations, just an attempt to inform those following my blog of how serious the situation is. 

I am thankful to have squeezed past it when I did.  I didn’t take a whole lot of pictures, since it really wasn’t one of those days, but oddly enough, it was one of the most memorable days of my adventure so far.  Whether it was the miles and miles on end in the soaking rain, the five long hours in a truck on the side of the road, or the extra few unintended hours on the road, the memories I have of this day are clearer than any picture I could have taken.