Days 429-435! Welp… as the title says, there’s been flooding from the river post the cyclone! All the water from up north is now piling down on us, which unfortunately meant more days off from work! Days are ticking down to my flight home, I still have a good buffer but the sooner I get done, the more time I have to explore and surf! This week was full of highs and lows, I hope you enjoy!

It’s Thursday, March 6th and with cyclone Albert slated to hit tonight or the following day… it was probably my last chance to go outside for a few days. On top of that, the power was out for a few hours this morning so there was no need to sit around the house.

I obviously did not have work today due to the impeding cyclone, so I woke up a bit later and set out on a walk since it wasn’t raining yet! I wanted to see what the waves were doing with the impressive winds rolling through. Turners beach had the perfect spot to check it all out!

There’s a break-wall walking path that leads all the way to the end of the break-wall. I was determined to make it to the end. The winds were harsh, but the storms for the day hadn’t come in yet AND the waves were still below the break-wall, so it felt safe to do so.

But that didn’t stop the waves from spraying me with water throughout the walk.

My hair was all over the place by the time I reached the end. It’s funny that I haven’t walked out here yet and the time I do, it’s probably not the safest time to do so… But, it was totally worth it. I’m not skilled enough to be out in the surf (nor was it great surfing waves) but to be able to experience the cyclones power in a semi-safe way was very impressive. For this landlocked midwesterner, it was quite the show!

I got home and hopped on a FaceTime with my parents! They’re back in the US and have adjusted very quickly to the time zone, which is good to hear. I struggled a lot when I came back from Thailand in 2024.

I’d been doing a lot of sitting around the past week because of the storm, so there wasn’t a ton of updates. But I always love FaceTiming them and I can’t wait to see them again in a couple months in person!

Not long after this call, I had another lovely FaceTime with my Bubbie and Zeidie. It was a nice morning of much needed family time.

After the FaceTime, I decided to finally make a trip to Coles, brave the weather, and restock up on food. The shelves were empty in a lot of places, it was reminiscent of when Covid lockdowns started. There was no bread or eggs on the shelves and very limited produce too! So I got what I could and needed and went back home.

And then, luckily just as I got inside, the sun went away, the clouds rolled in and another big rain storm started coming down. I appreciated it waiting for me.

These rain storms had been on and off for the past number of days. Most of the days, when I thought I’d go for a walk, the rain would come at that exact moment… so I just sat at home watching TV and playing guitar.

My friend Max sent me a text asking if I wanted to join him and a few others at the golf club to play their golf simulator. I had nothing else to do and he offered to pick me up, so I happily joined them.

Even though most of us sucked at playing the simulator, it was still fun. We had a couple beers, chatted, and played for a few hours before calling it quits. We only had to pay for an hour too since no one had reserved it after us, which was a nice bonus!

The cyclone stalled for a bit earlier in the week and hit later than expected. So, Friday, March 7th rolled around and the morning started with some pretty heavy rains. So I stayed inside all morning and then, around 1pm… the power went out again.

But this time, it was out for good.

The Cyclone was pretty much in full effect, but there were small breaks in the storm for the energy company to try and fix the lines. But not enough time, because the power stayed off all day.

So, I spent most of the day reading the current Stormlight Series book that I’ve been putting off reading. I also played some guitar too.

I also snuck in a FaceTime with my cousin Ben! We had a nice catch up and chat about summer plans while I’m back in the US for a bit!

I was stuck inside all day, but even so, the storm ended up being much more tame than expected! I still had no power the whole day, but most of the town was fine. The winds were the worst of it… but there were problems still to come.

The rain was still in full force and our power was still out, so once the sun went down, I pretty much was just sitting in the dark. All this sitting around definitely began to weigh on me as Saturday, March 8th rolled around.

We were still out of power when I woke up, which was definitely not ideal. And mentally, having nothing to do for almost a week was bringing me down. Thankfully, I have a great support network of family and friends to chat with and I was able to get out of this mental slump.

I was really questioning what I was doing, why I was working on a farm, and why I was just sitting doing nothing when I could’ve left the town while the storm hit. This isn’t the first time while traveling I’ve had these intrusive thoughts. They happened a lot when motorbiking across Vietnam and Laos and even during my divemaster course too!

Do I have to be doing any of these things? No. Do I want to be doing these things, heck yeah! But they’re tough and I’m continuously pushing myself to get through these experiences to learn and grow. Now, motorbiking and scuba diving every day are a bit different to working on a farm. But at the same time, I’m living in a beachside town, normally getting to go into the ocean everyday. All at the cost of working on a farm and a minor tropical storm.

I just need to remind myself, “this too shall pass” and work my way through it. Talking with my parents and then playing guitar afterwards really helped lift my spirits again.

And finally… after 28 hours, the power finally came back on!

I was also in contact with the farm today and we decided that I’d come out to work on Sunday even if it was raining. The farm took a little bit of a beating and there was some work to do even in the rain. It didn’t sound like the most fun work but I was excited to get out of the house.

So for the rest of the day, I chilled out at home and went to bed early, preparing for the work day to come.

Sunday, March 9th came around and it was time to get back to work! It was a grey and drizzly morning but the farm needed assistance, so as the farm hand, I was there and ready to help.

We threw on our raincoats and mud boots and set out into the orchard. There was plenty of flooding around the orchard, but not as much as Glen (the owner) had thought would happen. Unfortunately, a lot of the trees were on a lean because of the wind and wet soil, so today’s job was to help correct that!

Luckily only a few trees were fully pulled out or snapped. Their neighbor lost about 60+ trees from the wind… crazy!

Glen’s strategy for correcting the trees is to screw them into a support wire. Originally they were tied to it, but as they get bigger they snap the tie. It feels a bit strange drilling into a tree, but because of how trees grow, this barely damages them and the tree will grow around the screw. As the tree grows, we’ll just unscrew the screw a bit and give the tree more room! Not a bad system.

Glen also was putting up support stakes while I was doing this to further assist some of the trees that were leaning far over.

The morning was pretty unpleasant and it was dumping rain on us at some points. But time flew by and we made it through to lunch. While eating, we started chatting about the off chance of the river flooding, blocking off the road to work.

Glen and Aly offered to have me stay with them for the few days it might flood and continue to work. But I looked at the amount of days I had left and the time I had to complete them and decided to take the risk to just stay at home…

The river hadn’t flooded yet, so it was time to get back to work. Glen had a spare set of work pants that didn’t fit him, so I threw those on, changed out my socks and shirt too, and went back into the orchard. Thankfully this time around it didn’t rain as much.

It wasn’t the best working conditions, but having Glen to work alongside made the job much more enjoyable! Also it was great to be moving and out of the house.

The rain had definitely started to settle down, but the flooding wasn’t because of our rain necessarily. The river had a bunch of other rivers tying into it and those were flooding up north… which meant we were probably going to experience some flooding too.

I made my way home, took a nice warm shower, and then stayed inside the rest of the day. Work was enough time in the rain for me for one day.

Unfortunately, on Monday, March 10th, I was met with the news I didn’t want to hear… the road into Yamba was closed due to flooding!

And unfortunately it was shut JUST before I needed to turn off to the farm. I guess I didn’t make the right decision! Oh well.

But, this not so rainy day gave me the chance I needed to go get a haircut! The town was isolated so I was hoping that if one of the barbers was open, they wouldn’t have much of a line. My thought was correct and I finally was able to get my haircut (it’d been a while, I think since the end of December).

I played some more guitar too. I’ve been working on a really fun lick recently that has proven to be a challenge to learn. It’s the intro to Noah Kahan’s song “Maine.” I’ve had this one saved for a while now and just about got it down. It’s such a cool sounding intro and I’m glad to have it in my toolbox now.

It still hadn’t rained yet, so I went on a walk around the beaches to see how they looked. The storm has made the water look very brown and I’ve read a lot about how you shouldn’t swim post a storm due to disease, sewage water, debris, etc. So even though the surfing looked alright, I’m going to hold off for a bit longer.

Rain came and I spent the rest of the day relaxing, reading, tv watching, and more guitar playing. I was hopeful I’d be able to go to work the next day… but my optimism was incorrect.

It was Tuesday, March 11th… where’s this month going?! The road was still flooded and a tiny bit higher than yesterday. So the hope of it being opened at midday today was crushed.

But my spirits were lifted as I looked out my window and saw the sun starting to come out! I really wanted to go for a surf, but with the water quality being bad, I was going to hold off longer.

So instead, I went out on a walk around the beaches!

This walk ended up being an hour and a half! I spent most of it walking, but sat down for a bit at each beach to watch the waves and see how the ocean was looking. I was loving every second of having the sun back and wanted to soak it all in (maybe a little too much).

I walked up the hill to Main Beach, then made my way to Convent and Pippi, and then I wrapped all the way around town to Turners.

I was really impressed by how fast the water from the river was moving. If you look at the outlet you’ll see waves forming where the ocean water is clashing with the river water! There were lots of logs zooming down the river giving even more perspective on how fast it was moving.

There were loads of people fishing and I found out later in the day that the sharks were out and about stealing peoples caught fish!

When I got home, I realized I might’ve had too much fun in the sun and got a pretty gnarly tank top tan line. Turned out to be a slight burn, but nothing major.

For the rest of the day, I relaxed at home doing my usual routine of playing guitar, reading, and watching TV. It rained for a bit and then ended up being a cloudy day.

For dinner, I decided to go up to the pub and say hello to my friends working! It was nice to catch up and eat a chicken parmi. While I was eating, my friend Sam was coming up to the pub to have dinner with his dad. He invited me to come join them! So after I finished, I grabbed us beers and went upstairs to his room. I chatted with them while we watched the news, it was nice to just sit and hang out with friends! There’s been a lot of alone time this week.

Wednesday, March 12th marked a big day on multiple fronts. The first being, my first surf in over a week!

Now I know I just said the day before that the water quality isn’t great. But my friend Max texted me saying the waves at Pippi looked good for me… so I decided to give it a shot!

I’m glad I did, it was great to get back out in the morning and get the surfing muscles back into shape. There were a handful of other surfers out today too! A week off didn’t do wonders for my surfing abilities though. The waves were fairly choppy by the time I got there and with a lack of surfing, I was getting tired quick paddling through the onslaught of waves.

On top of that, the water was cleaner than most beaches but still pretty gross… so it wasn’t the most fun trying to avoid it getting in my mouth. Eventually I moved up towards the north point of the beach with smaller, calmer waves… but this part of the beach was dirtier since it was closer to the river. And eventually I saw a fair amount of fish flopping around so I decided to not test fate and avoid any chance encounter with a shark today (I’m not actually sure one was there, but the water was too murky to see).

Still, I was stoked to finally be back in the water!

When I got home, I immediately showered and then made my way to the local chemist to buy swimmer ear ear-drops. These were a lifesaver while scuba diving and apparently it’s very common for ear infections when surfing in storm water. So I thought it’d be a good idea to be proactive and still get my surfing in!

Around 11am I got a call from my friend Blake, who’s currently traveling through Columbia! He was thinking about buying a motorbike and riding across the country, he did it in Vietnam actually but just needed a sounding board and a little push to do so. It sounds like he’s having a great time in South America, which he’s been traveling through for 6-7 months!

While I was on the phone, I got a call from my boss, Aly, and she said that it sounded like the road was opening at 12:30pm. She suggested I just head over asap and not wait for the councils post to see if I could make my way through. So I scarfed down lunch and excitedly made my way towards the farm.

Well… when I approached the edge of town, there was a barricade up stopping cars and most were turning around. When I got to the barricade, they informed me the road would be opening at 1pm! So I gave Aly and ring and told her I’d try again then. So instead of heading to work, I stopped at Coles for some groceries and then headed back home. Coles finally had bread!

Blake and I finished up our phone call and then I headed back towards the farm!

The road was open, but only one lane was open on the part where the road was originally closed. This caused a little bit of extra time to my drive but nothing too bad. But eventually, I arrived at the farm!

I guess with having so many days at home, the kids were needing something to do. So their eldest was actually out helping us a little bit on the farm today. Added some nice humor and banter to the afternoon of work. We were continuing on with correcting the trees and getting them drilled into the metal wire to keep them upright. And we worked for just over 5 hours! So not too far off from a full day of work.

Once we wrapped up, we took a look at the levee wall to see how the water was doing on the farm. And it turned out that the river was now back filling the back of the farm. Hopefully it won’t keep flooding otherwise there might be problems on the low end of the farm.

To finish off the night, Glen and I had a beer and played some ping pong! One of his sons joined us as well and it was a really nice way to finish off the day! I know I’ll have my gripes about the work, but for now, I’m looking forward to getting back out to the farm!

On top of that, I’m so excited to get back to working and surfing! Hopefully some music making too. There are down days every now and then for me, but with how many extreme highs there have been while traveling, there’s most definitely going to be some extreme lows too. For now, I’ll keep flowing with the waves and looking forward to the warm days to come!

See you next week!!

– Elie