Country Retreat - 34. Riding out the Storm

I decided that before leaving, I needed to explore the house some more, and I was surprised to find two more large bedrooms, a front living room, a kitchenette and a formal dining room, on the ground floor, and upstairs, apart from the main kitchen and breakfast bar, there is a scullery area, a guest bedroom, comfortable lounge, a front balcony with awesome ocean views and the huge master suite that also has wonderful ocean views.

“How far are we from the Ledge Point property?” I asked as I returned to the lounge area. “It is 62 kilometres from this front gate to that one, which takes 45 minutes in good traffic,” Gramps replied, who was reading the daily newspaper. After loading the kayak, onto the trolley, I headed down to the beach, where I spent a good few hours paddling up and down the coast, and it did this every day leading up to Christmas Day.

I learnt that we all would be going up to the family farm for Christmas day, and my siblings were very happy to see me again when we arrived. Mum and Dad appeared to have patched up their differences, and their marriage was no longer on the rocks, also Amara and Deacon spend one weekend a month at our grandparents' place, which I believe reduces the stress and tensions in the household.

The day after Boxing Day, my friends and I headed over to Rottnest Island for a short holiday, travelling there in a 10-metre charter boat, and renting a three-bedroom cottage at Longreach Bay for six nights, which included New Year's Day, where we had an awesome time hiking, swimming, cycling and walking the beaches. I was a little sad when our last night arrived before we had to return to the mainland.

Shortly before nightfall, I received a text from Gramps, with a link to the Weather Bureau website. “Oh, this doesn’t look very good guys, we may be having an extended stay. Gramps just sent me a BOM website link. The bureau is forecasting a severe weather event, starting at around midnight tonight. Strong winds and a high tide are expected to hit Rottnest Island at around 11 pm tonight and last for many hours, due to a very slow-moving low-pressure system, we are told to batten down everything that will blow away and stay indoors,” I informed the others.

Jarrad looked at his watch and jumped up, grabbing his wallet and phone. “I’m going to the shops before they close, to get some supplies just in case we are stranded,” he announced as Rebecca and Marcus followed him out the door. “I better go with them, just to help out,” Giles said as he too stood and walked out the back door, and I just relaxed and waited for them to return.

It was nearly an hour later, when I was starting to get worried when I heard them arriving back, and there were some loud banging noises outside, which made me jump a little. “Ignore that, we are just taking extra precautions,” Giles said as he brought in two large bags of groceries followed by Rebecca and Marcus, also carrying two large bags each. “What the heck did you guys buy? The whole freaking store?” I asked seeing how much stuff they had, as Rebecca started to put it away, and Giles headed back outside.

“We didn’t know how long we would be stranded, so we have brought a bit of everything just in case,” Rebeca responded, as I helped her put the stuff away in the pantry, the fridge and the large esky that was also purchased, which is half full of ice.”What the heck is going on outside?” I asked her, just as I saw something starting to block the kitchen window.

“My brilliant idea. I asked the store if we could use some of their wooden pallets to cover the windows for protection, and surprisingly they agreed. We also bought some small traps and rope to put it all together,” Rebecca replied, as she put all the fruit juice and soft drinks into the esky. Giles returned inside with two more bags of supplies, which were added to the kitchen counter for us to put away.

As well as bread, chips, dried fruit, biscuits, fruit juice, flatbread wraps, fruit cake, soft drinks, bottled water, fresh fruit, cold meats, salads, UHT Milk, Cereal and we also had a couple of torches, extra batteries, extra toilet paper, liquid soap, and personal toiletries for all of us, a few novels and magazines, a few large candles, packing tape, incense sticks, some game cards, stationary and some extra towels.

“You think we are stuck here for more than a day?” I asked Rebecca, “Always good to be prepared,” she answered me, as we heard a plane fly over us, presuming that it was about to land. Over the next two hours, we heard a total of eight planes and four helicopters arrive and take off, we presumed to evacuate people off the island, as the ferry service had now been cancelled because of the high seas. Most people remaining on the island were being ordered to go to the emergency evacuation buildings, but when the Rottnest staff saw how prepared we were, they let us stay put.

With us all pitching in, we had all the external windows covered with wooden pallets, and we had large shrubs located near the cottage, that would provide us with some additional protection from the expected strong winds, but as added protection, we had small tarps attached to the inside of the pallets, plus placing packing tape on the windows, for additional protection.

The weather started to turn as we were having dinner that evening, as we prepared to dig in and ride out the storm. We had spoken to one of the Island Rangers shortly before dinner, who came to check in on us, and informed us, that because we were prepared, our booking to stay had been extended by an extra two days, maybe longer, at minimal additional cost, depending on how bad the storm is.

By 11 pm, the wind had picked up significantly as we settled down for the night, with all of us having a shower I case in case we lost power and water. Although I did try to sleep, the sound of the wind and soon after the heavy rain, I found it hard to sleep, while Jarrad was happily snoring away in the next bed. I made myself a cup of tea to help me sleep, and as I was Giles and Marcus appeared.

“Couldn’t sleep either?” Marcus asked me, as he started to do the same, adding another two cups with teabags added, “Make me one too please boys,” Rebecca said as she too appeared. “Where is Jarrad?” Marcus asked me, “Snoring his head off, as usual. He sounds like a hibernating bear sometimes,” I replied, which had the others laughing. We drank tea and played card games for a few hours, before we all got too tired and headed back to bed, with the storm now in full force outside.

When I woke up, I saw that Jarrad was already up, so I struggled out of bed and headed to the bathroom, but had to wait for whoever to finish in there. Once I had done my business, I found Jarrad in the living area reading a book, as I noticed that the storm was still going on outside, even if at a lower strength than what it was late last night. “We lost power for about three hours, but it returned about twenty minutes ago,” Jarrad informed me, and that is when I noticed the steaming hot drink near his chair.

“Any news on what is happening with the storm?” I asked, “Well about ten minutes ago I checked the BOM website, and it said that there is a series of cold fronts, one after the other that is going to impact the west coast from Lancelin down to Bunbury for the next two days at least. The first one was last night, and the next one is about to hit us at about noon.

I have also checked the news stations, which have reported significant damage to homes and businesses along most of the Perth coastal suburbs, while there has been minimal damage to buildings on Rottnest Island, with the 160+ staff and about 50 guests safely encamped at evacuation buildings throughout the island,” Jarrad replied. I carefully opened the front door that leads to the front balcony, and deciding that it was safe enough to go out there for a short while, I stepped out, closing the door behind me.

The first thing I did was to check the pallets that were protecting the windows, and I tightened some of the ropes that had worked themselves loose a little, before glancing over the balcony towards Longreach Bay and the lower row of cottages that are closest to the bay. I was shocked to see that several windows were smashed, and there were a few tree branches scattered over the roads, as I turned and returned inside.

“A bit of damage to some of the lower cottages,” I commented, “Yes, I heard them crashing during the night, how bad does it look out there?” Jessica said as she appeared, “A bit of a mess from what I can see from the balcony,” I responded. “How about we start to help out with the cleanup, hopefully, the other cold fronts won’t be so damaging as last night's storm,” Jarrad suggested, as he put his book down and stood up.

Shortly, all of us were outside, two of us using brooms, dust pans and wheelie bins, we began to clean up some of the glass that was scattered on the road as well as the back patio areas of the cottages across the road, while the rest began to gather all the broken limbs and branches and stacked them in a heap at the back of the low wall between the two rows of front cottages.

After two hours, we had cleaned up in front of and behind all six rows of cottages, that are closest to the beach, which received the heaviest damage, and some of the fallen branches on the street at the back of our cottage and neighbouring cottages, which also had some window damage, but not as much as the lower cottages.

As we were heading back indoors, the Island ranger arrived. “Good morning, have you been doing this cleanup?” he asked as he glanced around to see how much tidier it was, “Yes we have. Broken glass outside the cottages and on the road are in the wheelie bins and branches and limbs are in heaps between the cottages,” Jarrad replied.“