{"id":5819,"date":"2025-03-17T07:05:57","date_gmt":"2025-03-17T07:05:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=5819"},"modified":"2025-12-24T21:52:43","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T21:52:43","slug":"7-meet-alfred","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=5819","title":{"rendered":"7. MEET ALFRED."},"content":{"rendered":"

Flying into Brisbane, we were warned that it might be a bit bumpy on approach.\u00a0 Something about an extreme weather event off the Queensland coast.<\/p>\n

Severe Tropical Cyclone Alfred, a powerful, long-lived, and erratic tropical cyclone was threatening to bring severe damage to South East Queensland and\/or northern New South Wales.\u00a0 As the seventh named storm, and sixth severe tropical cyclone of the 2024\u201325 cyclone season, Alfred originated from a tropical low in the Coral Sea on 20 February.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Expected to be one of the most significant weather events in recent Australian history, Cyclone Alfred prompted warnings and evacuations in South East Queensland, and Northern New South Wales, an area which has rarely seen direct impacts from tropical cyclones.\u00a0 In fact the last cyclone to hit the Brisbane area was in 1974.\u00a0 (Yet another thing from the exciting 1970s!)<\/p>\n

We are at Robin’s place which is about 100 km north of Brisbane and 10 km inland!\u00a0 Alfred has been lurking off the coast as it dithered south past us.\u00a0 It then turned sharp right and headed for the coast about 40 kms south of here.\u00a0 I understand it then got stuck between two ridges of high pressure and hovered just offshore where it reduced from a category 2 cyclone to a tropical storm before it hit land on 8 March.<\/p>\n

Waves that came in ahead of the cyclone have been massive.\u00a0 Some reports said 10-14 metres as measured by offshore wave monitoring buoys.\u00a0 I’d say closer to 3-4 m on the beaches here.\u00a0 Still mighty threatening!\u00a0 And they were much bigger further south.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Close examination of the last photo reveals a wing foiler mixing it with the surf (on the extreme right)!\u00a0 Hope he’s wearing a life jacket!<\/p>\n

Literally, trillions of tons of beach have been relocated offshore leaving enormous sand cliffs.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A similar scene from near Surfers Paradise – not my photo.<\/p>\n

Because these cyclonic things rotate clockwise in the southern hemisphere, by far the worst effects of Alfred have been felt to the south of the system.\u00a0 The area from about Brisbane for a couple of hundred kms south into north NSW has had “interesting” amounts of rain (400-mm-in-a-day-sort-of-interesting!). There has also been a lot of wind.\u00a0 Power lines and trees down all over the place with up to 600,000 people without power at one point.<\/p>\n

When Alfred landed, we had had maybe 10 mm of rain at Kiels Mountain and, at most, a strong breeze. However, it could have been a very different story if the system had swung right a few days earlier.\u00a0 We appeared to have located ourselves close to the eye of the storm!<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

We have been walking on the coast to see the waves, along the Maroochy river, and up in the hills over the last few days and we didn’t get wet once.\u00a0 Robin described the weather as very “British”.\u00a0 Calm, murky, grey and drizzly.\u00a0 However, everywhere has been closed.\u00a0 Shops, schools and government offices.\u00a0 Ferries have been cancelled and the airports shut.\u00a0 Panic buying has set in, but has been largely limited to bread, bottled water and sand-bags.\u00a0 But the roads have been spookily quiet.<\/p>\n

Montville, a touristic town in the hills, is normally jammed.\u00a0 Impossible to park.\u00a0 When we visited just before the storm landed at Bribie Island we were the only car in town.\u00a0 Everybody (except us) was hunkered down playing cards and doing jigsaws and not working.\u00a0 Spooky.\u00a0 It seemed like the traffic was as it used to be 30 years ago.\u00a0 <\/span>So – we have been very lucky although very worried earlier.\u00a0 We did have some spectacular rain for a couple of days as the storm dissipated.\u00a0 This brought massive flooding to many areas.\u00a0 Indeed the access road to Robin’s place was extensively flooded and I got into severe trouble for driving onto the flooded road.\u00a0 We had to reverse out – no room to turn round.\u00a0 Not my best moment!<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

That’s not me driving Robin’s big truck, I hasten to add!\u00a0 For three days after the innundation, we had to avoid the floods by taking huge diversions through the high country to the north.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another effect of the torrential rain was that the pool\u00a0 filled with water (handily, without having to pay for town water!).\u00a0 But the floods also introduced a different sort of hazard.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A Small-Eyed Eastern Snake.\u00a0 Found curled up in the pool skimmer.\u00a0 Not nice.\u00a0 Distinctly venomous.\u00a0 Definitely one to be relocated into the woods!<\/p>\n

Moving swiftly on …\u00a0 The Coast gradually opened up again.\u00a0 Sand-bags were discarded.\u00a0 Windows were uncovered and un-taped.\u00a0 The caravan parks were opened and a few hardy campers led the stampede back to the coast.\u00a0 The slowest thing to sort itself out was the inland flooding.\u00a0 Days after the deluge, many roads inland from Brisbane remained impassable.\u00a0 We saw evidence of literally hundreds of flood-ways and river crossings having been swamped a week later as we made our way to Stanthorpe, 300 kms to the south-west.\u00a0 Miles of fencing and other obstructions were decorated with grass up to a metre above ground level<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A lot of gravel roads and even some sealed roads were suffering from serious wash-out.\u00a0 There would have been no chance of us succeeding in crossing the low lying lands and flood plains on our way inland.<\/span><\/p>\n

But cross them we did (a week later) – but that’s another story!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Flying into Brisbane, we were warned that it might be a bit bumpy on approach.\u00a0 Something about an extreme weather event off the Queensland coast. Severe Tropical Cyclone Alfred, a powerful, long-lived, and erratic tropical cyclone was threatening to bring… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thailand-and-australia-travels-in-2025"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5819"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5842,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5819\/revisions\/5842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}