A VERY HOT WEEK AND BUSHFIRES

It has been a crazy week in Rocky this week with temperatures way up over 40 degrees.  It has amost been unbearable to be out doors.  In fact the kids at school this were were not allowed outdoors to play because of the heat.

I think Wednesday was the hotest day with the temperature also getting up to around 45degrees.  this wasn't too big a problem until we got wind and gusts up to 70kms an hour.  We have had quite a few fires in our area and with these strong force winds it wasn't long before one of them was out of control.  Burning at such a rate that the whole of Gracemere was evacuated as a raging bushfire headed towards it...

It wasn't just our area, the whole of Queensland has been burning with some massive fires all the way up the coast...

 Schools were closed down in the area, the Premier was on TV warning people to evaculate immediately as this fire was catastrophic and moving way too quickly..

 I really can't thank our firies and the firefighters from all over Australia who flew into Rocky to help combat these vicious fires.  It fact it was going to take a miracle to have it under control and that miracle came in the form of a wonderful 737 plane that flew into to drop litres of water over the flames... We are so grateful for all of these guys and their services as without a doubt, Gracemere wouldn't have existed without them...

 One of the other causalities with these high winds, is that trees were also uprooted around town, and we weren't immune to this, with one of our big wattle trees snapping a large branch bringing it down against our caravan. Thankfully it didn't fall on the roof other wise it might have done some serious damage.

Large tree branch falls on our van...

Although the bush fires were really quite scary, the upside to the smoke in the air were the incredible sunsets we experienced that week at home...

 So thankful for the plane and firefighters who have spent fews fighting horrendous fires up and down our coastline....