The Great Escape

We looked into the viability of getting from Townsville to Cairns by plane, and it was good. Just as we were preparing to take the car to the local Hertz office and travel the rest of the way in the air, the radio came on and announced that the police had opened the road. We could not believe this - it was only Saturday and the initial reports had said it would be closed until Sunday at the earliest. So we tentatively made our way to Ingham where the flooding was the worst. It was only an hour's drive away, so if it was really bad we could still get back to the airport in time.

There were two bad patches - the first one just south of Ingham was deep, but the car had no problems with that one. So on we went. The patch just north of Ingham was far worse, and we stopped before it to assess the situation. Unfortunately this meant we got stuck behind an American tourist who was unaware of the old adage 'don't be gentle with the rental' and proceeded through the raging torrents at about 10kmph. We were far less inclined to gentleness and wanted to put our foot down a bit to get some momentum going. As the water lapped at the car above the wheels we weren't sure if we would make it. There were a few sticky moments but we made it, and from there it was plain sailing (not literally) to Cairns.

The road has now been closed again, so we were very lucky to get the window of opportunity that we did get!