Last week was an Outreach week. My team went to Cairns. Not the beautiful, peaceful tropical paradise, it was the monsoon rain hammered town about three weeks post cyclone. It didn't stop raining. Frankly I didn't see blue sky, really ever, the whole time. It was a strange week all up. Some kids we didn't see at all because at the last minute they were cancelled. On Wednesday night we went to Mission beach, to see a little one there. Mission beach looked like it had been hit by Napalm, or Agent Orange. It was deforested. Even three weeks post cyclone, the forest looks as if it had been assaulted yesterday. Huge trees had been snapped off at the base. The trees weren't even cleanly broken. It looked as if the trees had been spun around so many times on their base, eventually they had succumbed and finally splintered.
We arrived in the afternoon, and it started to rain. In the next 36 hours we got in excess of 500mm of rain. That in the face of storm blocked drains, it flooded and we were stuck. For a day of working on the phone, we actually had a quiet one. Twice we tried driving out but were thwarted.
The next day after the rain had dropped to a more normal monsoonal level, we were able to get out fairly easily. Then we flew home and Yes it was a really bumpy trip!
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