Played golf on Saturday last week , but the heat & humidity got to me a bit and wasn't the best game . After having a relaxing Sunday , cycling here & there for some exercise , and basically just relaxing , we decided to recoat the dining table . A trip to Bunnings in Bundaberg and a few necessary purchases , we headed back to the beach . Here's a couple of photo's of the bike track near sunset .
Another side story - we got a bullseye stone chip in the windscreen when we went up to Cape York , it decided to crack in a couple of directions - one straight across the line of vision of the driver , so it's time for a new windscreen . We found Bundy Windscreens and went to check in - Tuesday 8am it is !
Tuesday dawns so I'm off into town for the windscreen , arrived at 7:55 and was back on the road again at 9:15 , how good was that !! Back to the van to play with the table again and spend some time on books and puzzles . That afternoon a front was coming through , promising thunderstorms , rain & lightning . It started off with some very light rain , then lightning & thunder , then some more heavy rain . It was predicted to get windy , but the forecast direction was on the opposite side to our door and awning , so we left it out , it was tied down as well . Next thing we knew there was an enormous wind gust , the van shook , the awning started to flap , bit's of trees flying around everywhere and torrential rain !! I had thoughts of going out to untie the awning but that was never going to happen , it was far too dangerous outside !! Next thing , the awning was bouncing , there was a loud bang as it bounced around and the roller hit the edge of the roof above the door , ropes were loose or lying on the ground . The rain finally let up letting us go out to check the damage .
The awning was totalled awning was ripped for about 1.5m this end and pulled out of the track at the top of the far end for about 500mm . An aluminium arm had snapped to allow this to happen . After surveying the damage and taking some photo's for insurance purposes I cut the remaining awning off and removed the arms from the van . Meanwhile the rest of the park looked like someone had gone berserk with a chainsaw trimming branches from every tree , water was lying around , some vans had water views , some had water lapping at their steps .
It took park staff 2 days to clean up all the tree debris and tidy up . Bundaberg was hit with a one in ten year storm , trees were ripped down , and had 14,000 people without power for the night and next day - funnily enough we still had power and never lost it , others in Bargara had no power till Wednesday night !!
Fortunately for us , the park has skip bins so we could throw all the bits and pieces of awning into them . The roller is 18 feet long though , so we needed to borrow a hacksaw to cut it up - I asked the park staff if I could borrow one , they arrived on site with an angle grinder and proceeded to cut it up for me as well !!
A few phone calls and the insurance claim was underway , just have to wait for approval and the replacement to be fitted , and we are good as gold again .
The wind has stayed for the rest of the week , with constant 30klm hr winds gusting up to 50-60 , so not a lot of anything else has been done . Golf today in the wind was going to be interesting , but I managed to play to my handicap with 36 points .
That's it up to date , Cheers
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