D76 -- Heading for cover

Thomas has been growing his hair out, partly because he doesn't have a job and so doesn't have to look so clean cut and partly because I've been bugging him to try something new. But he just couldn't take the shaggy hair anymore and so we started our day out at the mall where he got his hair cut by a very nice woman from a town south of Cairns called Innisfail (remember that name). She talked about the approaching cyclone and told him it was a Category 4 storm with wind gusts up to 160 mph. It was supposed to hit sometime that night or early the next morning.

We checked the weather and saw that Townsville, where we were set to drive today, would be affected but that the brunt of the storm would be borne by towns closer to Cairns. As we drove south to Townsville through banana and sugar farms we started to realized that this storm was going to be MAJOR. They were updating the weather on the radio a lot, and telling people to tape windows, put lawn furniture away, secure construction sights, and wrap themselves in mattresses. Scary! After four hours of driving through some showers and mild wind we made it to the Quality Inn, right across the street from a construction site with lots of building materials laying around. Uh-oh. Upon check-in we learned that all flights out of Townsville were canceled for the following day. UH-OH!

Thomas called Qantas right away and booked us on a flight leaving a day later. We holed up the rest of the night, ordering room service, watching movies, and checking the weather bulletins until 3 in the morning.

-Elva