The floods it seem have a less tragic air about them, stories of local characters joining together to chuck little morsels of chicken from the pub verandah into a flooded street, shotgun in hand, waiting for pot-shots at marauding crocs in their waterlogged community. You can't help but smirk at their ingenious. People flying beer into stranded communities.... god forbid we go dry!
The fires however are tainted in horror. We dread the headline that will greet us as we fire up the computer in the morning - 35 Dead, 45 Dead, 95 Dead, 108 DEAD!!!! It's climbing higher and higher. As a photojournalist the places, the flames, the stories are all too familiar but magnified in severity by a hundred. It is not something any of us want to see again......
Unfortunately tragedy today finds us closer to home...not our family directly, but the family across the road.
We are staying at a friend's property just over the Daintree River, where they have kindly let us shack-sit their half built dwelling while they are away working. It's nothing fancy but it is fancier than a camper trailer so how can we refuse. The forest is glorious! Lusciously thick, green, and inundated with epiphytic ferns and vines of all kinds. The frogs are a frantic soundtrack for the forest and the volume is unimaginable. We are often kept awake at night....listening
However all this was no consolation to the family on the property across the road not 200m away. Yesterday at about 9.15am their youngest son Jeremy was taken by a crocodile off their family jetty, he was only five. It is almost unbelievable. As we drove off the property yesterday we knew straight away something was wrong, there were cars around, two police vehicles had come over on the ferry and everyone looked worried. As we sat waiting for the ferry to return to our side on the northern bank of the Daintree river, a local woman stated to the guy behind us that Jeremy had been taken by a croc. It is tragic.
As the morning went on the local community here did everything they could and everybody with a boat had it in the water searching for the boy, the croc or both. I can't imagine that Croc will get off with a warning.....I wouldn't like to be him right now. Unfortunately the boy's seven year old brother witnessed the whole attack so that can't be good.
Anyway we hugged our kids tighter and thanked our lucky stars, what else can you do?
Get what you want at ebay. Get rid of those unwanted christmas presents!
