Rumours of my demise...

Rumours of my demise have been greatly exaggerated (assuming anybody gave enough of a crap to start any). As I mentioned in a previous post, I have been unwell recently with a nasty illness that I picked up from somewhere. I've been reluctant to mention it because there are other people not far from here that need a lot more help and deserve a lot more sympathy than I do (see my previous post again). In any case, two events have brought my health back.

The first was doing a shift in The Beach as I watched the mighty Gold Coast United thrash North Qld 4-0, two of the goals coming from Super Bruce. I had been only 50/50 about going at all because I wasn't feeling well, and six minutes into the game it looked like all the singing was going to be too much and I'd be forced into The Left Side. Fortunately, that didn't happen, the singing just got louder as GCU handed out a thrashing. By the end of the night I was feeling good. I even managed to win an esky (God knows how I'll get that home).

Then tonight I headed out for my first night ride in far too long. I'd been feeling a little tired before the ride, but I went anyway. The first 10km or so I rode as if I'd been shot out of a gun. I had planned to slow down once I hit the hills behind Mudgeeraba, but somehow that didn't happen either. Once I reached Little Nerang Dam I was totally covered in sweat, even more than usual. I had planned for this by taking extra water, so I was able to really enjoy the ride home, too. Especially the view of the gorge in the moonlight. I'll be doing a lot more night rides from this point on, this is guaranteed.

I also had an idea for a new "reality TV" show -- The World's Stupidest Canetoads. You could pretty much pick any canetoad that's dumb enough to try to stare down an E3 headlight and an approaching cyclist without even moving -- especially if that cyclist is aware of what canetoads do to the local wildlife and not very happy about it. I found plenty of potential stars for my new show, but somehow they all ended up dead. Oh well, I'm sure there are plenty of others out there.

Queensland Floods

It's about time I made a post on this subject. For those who don't know, my home state of Queensland has been absolutely hammered by a record flood over the last couple of weeks. Somehow this flood has miraculously avoided my home city of the Gold Coast, and life goes on relatively normally here, despite the fact that everywhere around us is currently under water. I personally have had a nasty cold to contend with, but that's of no consequence really.

In the west, some towns such as Dalby and Chinchilla have been submerged several times over in the last few weeks, and the town of Dirranbandi has apparently been cut off from the outside world for three consecutive weeks. Closer to home, the mountain top town of Toowoomba was hammered by a major flash flood that was literally washing cars away -- that was about three days ago. That evening, the village of Grantham at the foot of the mountains was almost totally washed away. I've ridden through Grantham a few times in the past, it was quite a lovely little village, and some of the stories there have been absolutely horrific.

Yesterday it was Ipswich, to the west of Brisbane (home to around 160,000 people). One of my co-workers has family there, they have been safe from what I hear, but there are apparently another 78 people unaccounted for right now. As I type this, large parts of the city of Brisbane, home to around 2 million people are underwater. My mother lives there. Last I heard she was OK, and it appears the worst of it has now passed -- assuming it doesn't rain again in the next few days. Personally, I have never seen anything like this before, and it puts a heck of a lot of things into perspective.

There have been some good news stories to come out of this. High profile sports people such as Lance Armstrong and Tim Cahill (and quite a few others) have offered some assistance in terms of raising funds for the victims. Plenty of other people (including former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd) have pitched in and got their hands dirty on location. Those who wish to donate to the appeal can do so at http://www.qld.gov.au/floods/donate.html . I know that the Gold Coast United Supporters Club (otherwise known as "The Beach") are in the process of organising something as well. I'll post more details when they're available.