Brisbane Floods January 2011
 
We arrived home about 4th December. In the rain.

For the next 4 weeks or so it rained some more.

This is just some normal rain, the water running off our "gargoyle" to steer it off the flat roof.

We can collect the water in a bucket - about 10 litres in 10 minutes.

We got some maintenance done on the truck but really hadn't bargained for the river flooding and adding to the already busy time of maintaining truck and planning the Asia trip.
 
Somewhere under the water is a patch of grass that we laughingly call the tennis court.

This is the Brisbane River, just below Colleges Crossing in Karana Downs. The view from our swimming pool.

Probably only about 10m above normal.
 
This is the view of our house on Wednesday 12th January.

The river is at its peak, about 25m above normal. Another 2-3m to go to the house.

We spent Tuesday night in the Tardis near the local shops. Our neighbours had a bit of a sleepless night watching the river.

We knew it had peaked because we could see the river gauge measurements plotted on the internet. We also had our own stick and a tape measure.
 
The small gum tree leaning over in the center survived with absolutely no damage.

The current in the center of the river was strong to say the least. Probably around 10-15 knots.

Towards the right in the distance is a ridge. There's a white post on the end that we used as a reference.
 
By Thursday it had dropped. Still not clear of the swimming pool but we began to get a sense of the damage.
 
The tree left of center is the one we thought we may lose. The ridge on the far side has a white post which showed us the limit of 1974 flood, and this one.

There's a line of brown becoming green.
 
The pool fence suffered. That's grass and debris hung over it.

We very early came to the conclusion we should remove the pool fence and fill in the pool.

The water is still quite high and going down very slowly. It meant we could tackle the pool area without worrying about what was below the water.

 
The shed suffered.
 
The tangle of vegetation is a date palm (with big thorns), a Dutch Elm bent over at 90 degrees without breaking, and three other trees at various angles.

Had to pull out most of the date palm before attacking anything else.
 
Water down a bit more. The same ridge as before, just more visible.
 
The cleanup crew. Help for which we will be eternally grateful as we had no chance of doing it on our own. The edge of the garden is those trees in the middle of the river.

Still a long way for the water to go down.

 
Down a bit more.
 
The lower part of the garden emerging.

A bit overwhelming really. Only thing to do was chop up one tree at a time.

The tangle on the left is the same as mentioned earlier, with the very prickly date palm in the middle.
 
Looking back up the hill from that mythical tennis court.

That horizontal tree is about 450mm diameter at the base.

Our house is hidden in the trees, about center.
 
We had a visitor from the neighbours. A bit of entertainment in the middle of all the work.

A couple of days later the postman knocked on the door wondering if we knew where the alpacas were from.
 
The ropes are to pull and hold the green bush so its vertical. It seems to have survived.
 
That ridge again. 

The two trees are those two that the tops poked out of the river at its peak. The left hand one is the one that was bent over. Must have really good roots.

There's a bit of debris hanging in the left hand one near the top of the photo. The water was above that.

Same ridge in the background.
 
The neighbours with one of the many trees that weren't going anywhere until we did something.
 
Almost back to being tidal. The ridge is the best indication of what 25m of flood looks like.

The ridge is about 200m from us.