Fishing John's Creek

I was woken at 4:30am this morning as the wind suddenly came up and built in strength until every gust shook the caravan. Ilse and I went outside and retracted the awning which stopped the caravan shaking and is also a good precaution to prevent the awning being ripped off by a gust - better safe than sorry.

While on the subject of winds, I noticed that buildings are constructed to cyclone standards. Houses seem to have a special metal frame with a lot more metal than back home. The caravan park ablution building roof frame has heavy trusses welded from RHS with lots of bracing and very solid I-beam going around the base of the roof line. Purlins seem to be spaced at about half the distance of this at home.

Even with all these building standards if a cyclone goes right through it will still be very destructive. And it's not a matter of "IF" but more of "WHEN". All towns in this area have been hit by cyclones in the past.

Once we had the awning rolled up we went back to sleep and didn't get up until 8am. The wind was blowing fairly strong and we were almost cold although the temperature was above 20DegC. It was an overcast day and there were showers on the weather forecast.

Ilse did some washing and I did a bit of work before we drove to Woolies in Wickham for a few supplies. A quick drive though Wickham showed us that most houses are rented by mining employees working for Rio Tinto. The company makes many contributions to the local community and schools so life is a bit more bearable for their employees.

Every house that doesn't have a fence has heavy security screens on every bit of glass around the house.

After lunch we went fishing to John's Creek where the tidal change causes a strong flow under the bridge which restricts the amount of water going in and out of this estuary. The flow is so strong, it reminds me of the Kiewa river above Mt Beauty. We fished from an hour before the top of the tide to an hour after and expected a little bit of slack water at the to of the tide. However, the tidal changes here are so rapid that we had no slack water at all. The tide literally turned from running in to running out in a matter of seconds - and this is no exaggeration.

Although the kids had great fund catching lots of little fish on bait the Barra continued to allude us and we went home fishes yet again.