Autumn

Just as it's getting warmer at home, the temperatures in Australia are starting to dip, which can only mean the beginning of Autumn.  Not fall, Autumn.  And I suppose since the temperature change isn't drastic enough to make any leaves fall from the trees, using the proper name of the season is appropriate for Australians.

It's still hot out during the day, but for the first time this season we were able to sleep without the air con last night, and actually needed to bundle up for the game last night.  It felt very refreshing to uncover my long sleeves and be able to bundle up in a scarf.  Even after a Boston summer we welcome sweater weather, so you can imagine how nice it is after a tropical summer.  Although the summer is by no means over - yesterday I made the mistake of sitting on the beach without sunblock, and am nursing a severe sunburn now.

One frustrating thing about the change of seasons is that the days are beginning to get much shorter.  Even on the longest day of the year, the sun sets at 6:40, since Brisbane is fairly close to the equator and doesn't have day light saving's time.  Now, it is getting dark at about six o'clock.  There's hardly any twilight here - again because we're close to the equator - so it only takes about ten minutes difference between the sun starting to set, and darkness. 

One group that doesn't mind the earlier evenings are the flying foxes.  Every night when the sun begins to set, these bats emerge from the trees and set out for their night flights.  Along the river there are literally hundreds of them, swooping and screeching to welcome in the night.

All Bundled Up

Flying Foxes

Aussie Rules Football

Last night was the season opener for the Lions, Brisbane's Australian Rules Football team, and I was right there to see the start of the season.

Aussie Rules is a pretty intense game, but luckily I was able to grasp the basics enough to follow the game.  Walking into the stadium the first thing you notice is the shape of the field, or pitch.  Unlike most sports, the field isn't a rectangle, but an elliptical.  That keeps things interesting, because instead of just worrying about the opponents in front of them, players have to consider  being tackled from all sides.  Add to that the fact that the players don't wear any safety equipment besides a mouth guard, and it makes for a very physical, fast-paced game.

Aussie rules players have been been scouted by the NFL as kickers, and watching a game there's no question why.  To move the ball, players almost exclusively kick - while running, watching their opponents on all sides, and trying not to be tackled.  It makes kicking field goals look like little league.

Have a look at the Aussie Rules Action here.

Enjoying the Game

Surfers Paradise

Looking at the beaches in this city south of Brisbane, you'd think that God himself named it Surfers Paradise.  Not so.  However, I'm sure the man who renamed the city Surfers Paradise from Elston in 1933 thought he had been struck by a bit of divine intervention.  Surfer's Paradise - who could resist a visit?

Instead of supporting the outrageously expensive and otherwise sub-par Australian dining scene (but that's another post) to celebrate our engagement, Mark and I got an apartment on the coast with his family for a night.  It was great - the beach really is where Australia shines!

It's such a change to go to a beach where you can actually stay in the water!  Even at the best of times, the ocean around Boston is cold.  Here, the water was like bathwater.  We were able to splash and surf all day.  But first, Mark needed to educate me on some Aussie Beach etiquette, which I'm glad to pass on to you.

When hitting the beach here, the first thing you've got to do is slip, slop, and slap.  Slip on a shirt, slop on some sunscreen, and slap on a hat, as the public service campaign goes.  There is no shame in applying sunscreen on an Australian beach.  The higher the SPF the better, since the Queensland sun really has bite.  Although there were plenty of speedos, full-body sun-protection swim suits were quite fashionable on the beach.

Once you're sun safe, you've got to find a place to swim, and in Australia, that means between the flags.  Beautiful Aussie beaches can stretch for miles, but those refreshing waters are actually harboring a world of dangers like sharks, jellyfish, and rip tides.  Luckily a group of volunteer life guards, or Surf Life Savers, patrol the beach each day, and evaluate where it's safe to swim.  Australians have a very healthy respect for the water, especially the ocean, so nearly everyone sticks between the red and yellow flags that denote a safe swimming area, where you can splash under the watch of some of the best life guards in the world. 

If you're still feeling a bit unsure about venturing into Jaws territory, have no fear - you're covered from the land, the water, and now, the air.  You already met the Surf Life Savers, and seen the orange buoys that hold the shark net bobbing in the surf.  Next, you hear a familiar whir and look up to see the shark patrol helicopter - the one that spends days flying along the Gold Coast, looking for any unwanted predators in the clear blue waters.   

But nevermind all that.  Just take a breath, dunk into that clear water, and be thankful to be in Paradise.

Shark Patrol Chopper

The Ocean Horizon

Surfer's Paradise

Turtles

Look at that beautiful blue eye.  As this turtle was laying 118 eggs, I was looking right into that eye.

On Saturday, Mark and I decided on a whim to drive to Bundaberg, about four hours north of Brisbane.  Just outside the city is Mon Repos, a rookery that hosts the largest number of nesting Loggerhead sea turtles in the world.  Each year, between November and February, 400 turtles make their way to Mon Repos, laying eggs in over 1,000 nests.  We were blessed to see two of those turtles up close.

Each night, visitors to the rookery are divided into large groups.  While volunteers and researchers patrol the each for turtles, visitors wait at the information center.  Mark and I sat in an outdoor ampitheatre, alternating between watching films on turtles, and watching the stars in the clear, dark, southern sky.

 Finally, a turtle was spotted on the beach.  Before they begin laying eggs, turtles are easily disturbed, especially by light.  Because of that, we followed a walkway down to the beach in the pitch dark - I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. 

As we walked along the beach, we noticed a strip of sand darker than the rest - a turtle track, leading toward the dunes.  Because of the recent cyclone, the beach was washed out, and just above the high tide mark the dunes formed a sharp drop, about two feet high.  Somehow, our turtle had managed to make her way over this cliff and into the dunes, just where she was supposed to be laying her eggs.

Because she had already begun digging, our guides were able to shine a light behind her, at an angle that she couldn't see.  We gathered behind and watched her digging the nest - reach down, scoop, and dump.  It was amazing.  I always thought that turtles just sort of pushed the sand away with their flippers, but nest digging is a precision job.  She reached in, one flipper at a time, and cupped the end of the flipped, scooping the sand.  When she came up, she rotated her flipper just like a wrist, to dump the sand out of her way.  

When she was finished digging the nest and laying eggs, she began filling in.  First, she used her back flippers to fill in the deepest part of the nest, which went down about two feet in a pear shape.  Then, she used all four flippers to turn her body and cover the hole her body had made in the sand.  And once that turtle decided she was ready to get back into the water, it was instant.  I thought that turtles were slow and clumsy on land, but I was wrong.  Every movement was streamlined and precise.

Once the turtle had returned to the sea, we returned to the visitor's center.  We were told we could wait around to see if any nests hatched, but nothing was guaranteed.  Of course, we opted to wait around, and after a bit we were told there was another nesting turtle on the beach.  Most people decided to wait for hatchlings, and only six of us went down to the beach.

The second turtle was just beginning to dig her nest, so we had a bit of waiting to do.  She had picked a spot below the steep dunes that I mentioned earlier, which meant that we would need to relocate the nest so it would be safe from high tides.  As one of the volunteers was searching the dunes for a good place to relocate the nest, he found two hatchings!

These little guys were amazing!  They were smaller than the palm of my hand, but so strong.  As the ranger held them, their flippers just didn't stop moving - even as they were held by these strange giants, the hatchlings were completely consumed by their instinct to get to the water.  The ranger held them out, and I was able to feel the flippers of minutes-old turtles running across my hand with surprising strength.  After we had all had a look, the hatchings were put back in the sand, and we watched while the tiny little creatures were swept into the Pacific.  

By then, the mother turtle was laying her eggs - all 118 of them.  We were able to move around, watching eggs drop into the nest, and then coming face to face with the turtle.  I was able to get down on my belly, right on her, and look into her eye.

After the mother had returned the the water, we needed to move the nest.  The ranger dug up all 118 eggs, and placed them, still warm, into our hands.  How the massive animals we had just seen came from these soft eggs that looked just like ping pong balls is a wonder.  We moved the eggs, four at a time, to the new nest, safely above the high water mark.  In nine weeks, over 100 little hatchings will poke out of the sand in that spot, and begin their frantic run to the ocean, starting the whole thrilling cycle over again.

Holding Hatchlings

Mommy #2

See Facebook for all the pictures.

The Clean Up

The river is back within its banks, and the flood clean-up has begun.  It's amazing how much there is to do.  Whole neighborhoods went underwater.  Entire households are now set out on the curb waiting to be collected, and a massive army of workers, aided by the army itself, is working 24/7 to pick up all that trash.

Even where the river went down rather quickly, it left inches of mud behind.  Last week I was running on the river walk, when it finally reopened a three days after the flood.  The beautiful parks were covered in thick, stinky river-mud.  The only reason I was able to run through was because the walkways had been plowed.  Plowed!  Just like Boston is plowing snow, Brisbane is plowing mud.

Some of the clean-up is taking a very long time.  In the city, buildings along the river had water in their basements, where all the electrical infrastructure is kept.  Nearly ten days after the floods, some hotels and office buildings are still without power, waiting for the equipment to dry out, and the electricity to be approved to be turned back on.  The Brisbane river ferry terminals - the quickest and most pleasant way to get around the city - have been ruined, and it will take at least three months to get them back up and running.  Of course, the longest clean-up is going to be for the thousands of families who have had everything they owned drowned by the Brisbane River.

Underwater

 From flood watch to flooded, Brisbane has had a pretty rough day.  Most workers had the day off as flooded streets kept people stranded in their neighborhoods.  In some areas, houses are under water up to the roofs.  Helicopters, including Army Blackhawks, have been providing background noise all day delivering supplies and assessing the scene from the skies.  

You really need pictures to get a feel for it, so here you go!

This car is parked on a road just down the street.  As you can see, the water moved in quickly all day.   The water is supposed to move up at least that amount again before the river peaks at 4 a.m., and even then it could stay high for days.  Brisbane is full of peninsulas, including Kangaroo Point, so the water is creeping up like this on both sides, meaning every inch the river rises can affect hundreds of homes.

9 a.m.

6 p.m. 

1 p.m.

All day things were roaring down the river - we watched tires, refrigerators, docks and heaps of other trash rush by.  Boats without captains were a common sight, but by far the most amazing was the restaurant that floated by.  That's right, a restaurant broke off its attachments and careened down the river.  By the time it passed us it had already smashed into a bridge, which is why it's pretty flat here. 

The appropriately-named "Drift" restaurant.

Free-floating boat & Coast Guard

This morning sandbags were flying, the convenience store had a line out the door, and residents were running to get all their first-floor property into their cars and onto higher ground.  However, once all the sandbagging was done and people felt they had prepared as well as they could, they sat back to watch the day unfold.  These guys were just one group who bought a six-pack and headed to a place with a view.  Even people monitoring their boats were securing ropes with one hand and holding a cocktail with the other.  I guess it makes sense - you can only do so much to fight it, and despite the destruction this really is an awesome event, in the purest sense of the word. 

Now, the helicopters are still flying and the river still rising, but things have settled down for the night.  When we wake up we'll be able to see just how high the river has come.  For now we're sitting on the deck, looking at the eerily-dark CBD, where the power has been turned off to avoid electrical problems as the water comes.

Dark CBD

Normal CBD

Flood Watch

Until today all the record breaking floods have been well north of us.  However, now Brisbane itself is on a flood watch.  The river is already over it's banks, and it's supposed to rise for two days.  The flood is projected to by worse than the infamous 1974 flood, which put the entire city underwater.

It's amazing to see - there were literally "inland tsunamis" that swept away homes, cars, and trees as rivers overflowed.  From our apartment near the inner city, Mark and I have been watching the scene on the river all day.  Entire docks have been floating downstream - one pier rushed by with a boat still tied to it.   

The Australians have done a great job of staying on top of the crisis.  The news has been following updates all day, and although there is always some sensationalism, they've offered lots of useful information.  The State Emergency Service (SES), a group of rescue-trained volunteers, has been working non-stop airlifting people who have been cut off by water.  In general, I've really got the feeling that the state, federal, and local governments are working hard to stay one step ahead of the disaster, rather than responding to it after the fact, like we sometimes see at home.

Mark and I live right on the river, but we're up a steep hill, so we'll be fine.  Right now we've got the perfect spot for watching everything unfold - we saw the CBD (Central Business District, ie, downtown) empty out at noon as employees were sent home while the roads were still passable, and have been watching police boats patrol the river all evening.  If anything, the most threatening thing we should have to deal with is being confined to a studio apartment, but for some areas around us it could be a very tough few days.

In fact, even the New York Times has taken notice of Brisbane, with this front page article on their website: Australia's Third-Largest City At Risk From Floods

An ocean tug to help boats pull out against the current.

Mark where a walkway should be.