MAY DAY, MAY DAY! WE ARE SINKING! I repeat: WE ARE SINKING!

Those who know me, know that I am not given to panic. More. I tend take the lighter side of really bad situations. So when the mothers started calling us panicking about the news about the floods in Australia I was very dismissive: "Mom, Australia is a big country. We are in Melbourne, the floods are in the middle of Queensland some 2000km away. Shall I ask you about how the cold and wet weather of London is affecting you in Lisbon?".

This witty remark was a calculated risk. I knew that 10 days later I was going to be driving along the coast of Queensland. But the floods were in the middle of the country and I thought that 10 days was enough for all the water that came down washed off to the sea by then.

Boy was I wrong!....

The waters have not receded at all, au contraire! Rain keeps pouring down and the rivers level rising. We are now in Lennox Head / Byron Bay (see point A in the map below) and tomorrow we are supposed to go to Rainbow Beach / Fraser Island (point B on the map). We might make it there, but we cannot go any further, though we need to be in the Whitsundays (point C on the map) in 5 days and further up in Cairns (not shown on the map, it's too far up) on the 16th to take the flight back home.

Being resourceful people, we have come up with the perfect plan: we will drive down from point B to Brisbane (somewhere between A and B), catch a flight to C and drive our way up to Cairns.

The problem is that now it's POURING DOWN EVERYWHERE  ALONG THE COAST!!! Even here in Lennox Head (point A on the map) water is coming down like neither of us have seen before. I know I am just a (not so) young impressionable city boy but Rita has lived 11 years in Venezuela and knows a thing or two about tropical downpours.

So our thoughts right now are: should we really hit the road tomorrow? The weather forecast is not really great. In here you can see a lovely satellite image of Australia: all the white area along the coast represents the clouds hanging over us right now and in all our destinations. And if you believe the weather men they are not supposed to go away before... well, before the 14th which is when we go home!!

But fear not, moms, hour summer holiday in the antipodes is most likely totally ruined but we are in good spirits: we just cooked a juicy rib eye stake and I am currently indulging myself with some tasty Australian Brie, Roquefort and Parmesan (this one is authentic) and drinking a prized Merlot from McWilliam's Hanwood Estate (vintage 2008). Rita is, as usual, sleeping like a baby.