The floods

We have been aware of the destruction that the various floods that Qld. have had, over the past two years particularly, by the damage to the roads and the erosion of creeks, road sides,  etc.   We've cursed the crappy roads, and the hold ups at continual roadworks, but realise there is a big job to be done up here.   But it wasnt until we camped at our last campspot on the Burnett River, at Ceratodus, that we saw the remnants of the destruction.   Next to our camp was a farm with a crop of literally hundreds of Sandalwood trees.   From the road as we approached it looked like a bomb site.    Hundreds and hundreds of dead trees, knocked over trees and debris everywhere.   Once camped up we were amazed to see the height of the debris left behind in the tall gums.    The river was flowing fast but quite a small volume of water was actually in the river.    Rick estimated that the water level had risen about 60 feet.    The existing river is so far down the embankment that it was difficult to view it, so to imagine the water rising so high was mind blowing.  It had come completely up over the bank, over the road, over where we were camped and into the plantation behind us.   Unbeleivable is the way to describe it.

This is taken from the highway bridge.   You can see in the tree in the backgound & foreground, branches lodged in the trees.   The water below was up higher than the trees. The water below in the photo is the river back to "normal"  

From the bus window, this tree limb is lodged around 60 feet higher than  the water level of today.

The sandalwood trees from the bus window as we drove down the road.   Debris lodged in their canopy.

You can see how they were pushed out of the ground by the force of the water.  The majority of the crop has been totally destroyed.