Archive for February, 2010

So there’s been a tsunami warning. It’s all over the news, it’s the lead story on the radio. The government websites (Bureau of Meteorology and the Joint Australian Tsunami Warning Centre)  have all the details and they’re forecasting that most of the east coast of Australia will be affected by it. How would you treat this information? Well let me tell you, if you’re the average Australian your first instinct apparently is to rush lemming-like to the beach and wait for the impending tidal wave.

Amongst my duties with the local surf lifesaving club, I am the local tsunami officer. We have a preparedness plan in place and we put that into affect today when the tsunami warning first went out. We then monitored the radio and were advised by Surfcom (the local radio centre) to close the beach and advise all beach goers to get to higher ground.

So first we got in the IRB and let all the surfers know. We knew they wouldn’t give a shit, because surfers are, like spiritual individualistic creatures of pure energy and they’re unaffected by anything as trifling as a tidal wave. So anyway – we let the 100 or so surfers at the beach know there was a tsunami warning and one solitary boogie-boarder left the water. We then let everyone on the beach know. We told the fishermen, we told the mums and dads, we told the couples out walking the dog. Nobody left the beach. In one case, a mother with two pre-school age kids even got in a piss with us because the beach was closed.

These poor fuckers didn't get any warning.

There’s a line in Aliens where Sigourney Weaver’s character Ripley comes out of a long cryogenic sleep and is told that her company want to return to the world of the aliens and engage in battle with them. Dumb-struck by this suggestion she asks, “Did I.Q.s drop while I was away?” I was wondering the same thing today.

Okay, so on most occasions when there’s a tsunami warning, it turns out to be little more than a ripple. Indeed when the dust had settled today, our nearest wave height buoy had registered a massive 0.1m increase in wave height at the time the tsunami was due. But surely that’s not the point is it? When you’re told that a massive 8.8 scale underwater earthquake has triggered a tsunami in the pacific, it’s not the same as announcing that Elvis has been found alive and well and is at this moment paddling a canoe towards Australia.

I mean one day, all those arseholes who think they’re bulletproof will find out the hard way that nature doesn’t always play the tease. One day these people will ignore the warnings yet again and rush down to the beach to watch the tsunami. And they’ll watch the tide go out and out and out. And they’ll notice in the distance the fringed cap of a very large surging wave. And they’ll stare a bit longer just to get a good look at it. And then they’ll all think, “Oh shit” and start rushing off the beach and the same idiot mothers who ignored the warnings today will struggle up the sand with their children and the old people will creak slowly up the sand and the surfers will tuck their boards under their arms and they’ll all rush to get in  their cars and the wave will pick them up and in one deft movement, remove them forever from the gene pool.

So the wife’s parents well and truly bolloxed up the summer for all of us. They came over in mid December and squatted in our house until the end of January. They weren’t very interested in doing anything that cost money up to and including actually hiring a car rather than constantly taking Liz’s, thus leaving us with only one set of wheels.

During an ordinary summer holiday we would of course have gone away somewhere. Probably nowhere exotic, but a short break, maybe in Sydney so that the sprog got a bit of time out of town. But since Shylock and the Dementor didn’t want to go anywhere that might entail the opening of a wallet that particular annual trip didn’t take place.

So Liz suggested that we head down the coast for a weekend away after they’d gone. After a thorough search she found a cool looking holiday park just this side of Batemans Bay and booked us a lake-side cabin for two nights. It is of course out of season but (supposedly) still summer, so we got pretty good rates on the cabin.

We set off from Barefoot Bay in bright sunlight and, as per the forecast we’d checked before we left, by the time we were an hour south down the Princes Highway, it was pissing it down. Funnily enough it pissed down with rain the last time we came to Batemans Bay as well.
We have come prepared for the shite weather of course. I mean, we’re English for god’s sake! I have my Macbook Pro with me along with the portable USB drive from the media PC which contains just under a terabyte of movies and TV shows. And of course I have my iPhone. Liz has her book and her phone. The sprog has his DS Lite, Scrabble, Lego and books etc. And if all that fails we could, like, talk to each other or something similarly crazy.

There’s holiday parks dotted around the entire coastline of Australia, but this part of New South Wales has more than its fair share. For the most part they’re nice places, although all of them have a section devoted to owner-owned blocks. These blocks usually contain a caravan (circa 1972) that has made its last trip that has had one side hacked off and an extension built on it. They look about as welcoming as Belsen, but I guess they’re fucking cheap and that’s why you see so many of them.

This particular park is located in a little village called Durras situated on a very nice bit of coastline. Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman have a place a few K’s south of here, but we haven’t seen them in the IGA stocking up on pies yet, so I’m assuming they’re out of town.
The cabin is very modern and clean and has all the things you need in it. It sleeps six (two on a sofa-bed) and has air conditioning, a full kitchen and bathroom along with a telly and DVD player. There’s an undercover deck out the front and a barbie/brazier for each cabin – although it’s not really the weather for barbecues.
We have brought all our bikes with us for the first time this year. This is mainly because the sprog has a very funky new mountain bike that his other grandparents bought him. It has proper big wheels, a load of gears and suspension and this means that Jack can now come with us on bike roads.

This morning we took advantage of the fact that the rain had eased to a mere persistent drizzle to go for a ride. We rode to the shop in town and then explored one of the many cycle tracks in the Murramarang National Park. It was pretty easy going, there being no hills, but by the time the track split into two anonymous looking paths we were totally soaked and decided to head back to the cabin for a shower.

We had lunch in Batemans Bay (inside table because it was still raining) and then drove further south to Moruya for a bit of shopping (on account of the rain). I got a new pair of fins and Liz got some new togs. We drove back along the coast path (in the rain) and had a home-cooked evening meal.

The plan for tomorrow is a slow drive north back home, stopping off in Ulladulla for a spot of lunch at a superb home-style Italian restaurant on the harbour.