With grey nomads starting to head north, the race is on to make sure areas of Queensland hit hard by Cyclone Debbie are looking as close to their best as humanly possible.
Many communities in the north of the state are heavily dependent on the economic benefits that the annual migration of caravanners and motorhomers brings, and they are leaving no stone unturned as they seek to put their best foot forward.
After the massive storm hit at the very end of March, the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service for one wasted no time in accessing the national parks and state forests to restore public access to camping areas and visitor sites.
With dozens of major landslips and hundreds of treefalls, park staff have been kept busy clearing debris, repairing infrastructure, removing hazards and making these areas safe for the public to enjoy.
National Parks Minister Steven Miles said at the time that the recovery focus would be on key tourism sites to ensure they were ready for visitors as soon as possible.
“In some instances it will take months for safe access to be re-established,” he said. “Some roads and tracks are likely to be washed away in sections or temporarily blocked by flooding, landslips and fallen trees. Camping areas, facilities and other infrastructure may also be damaged.”
For communities, forests and national parks that had looked like war zones in the immediate aftermath of Debbie’s fury, the transformation has been quite remarkable.
At the iconic Whitehaven Beach on Whitsunday Island, kilometres of broken trees have been bulldozed and hundreds of tonnes of pristine white sand has been used to return the famous beach to its former glory.
Queensland Parks and Wildlife ranger Brett Turnbull told the ABC that the idyllic tourist hotspot had looked ‘catastrophic’ days after the cyclone.
“I live here in the Whitsundays and it was devastating to see it like this — I’m sure for all the visitors who have been here before it would be quite devastating,” he said. “A lot of man hours and machinery hours went into it — there’s been heavy machinery here for a week and 12 rangers working full-time.”
The intensive reconstruction work on the southern end of the seven-kilometre shoreline is now almost complete.
Queensland Environment Minister Steven Miles said the beach had made a remarkable comeback.
“They’ve moved an incredible amount of sand to get the beach back up and operating, of course there’s also a lot of vegetation down, but that will recover surprisingly quickly,” he said.
We will head down south to Airlie Beach in late July. Just ordered a brand new van, so the Big 4 Adventure Park Airlie will be our maiden voyage. Just the most wonderful park and great surrounds.