The wild weather in parts of the country over the festive period has caused chaos for many campers and, sadly, has also brought tragedy.
On Boxing Day, two people were killed when what has been described as a wall of water swept through a popular camping area in regional Victoria.
Police located the bodies of a man and a woman who had been staying at the Buchan Caves Campground, about 350 kilometres east of Melbourne. They say a number of vehicles in the campground area were left underwater and several people also had to be rescued from a nearby bridge.
The Guardian newspaper spoke to one couple who returned on Thursday to salvage what they could from their caravan before it was towed away.
The rain has also made road conditions challenging at times. PIC: Cizza
They were part of a group of nine people in a caravan and tents on adjoining sites when rain started falling shortly and water began gushing down nearby mountains before joining the creek to the rear. Within 30 minutes, the water was knee deep and they decided to flee.
“I’m not a man who frightens easily, but it was bloody scary,” the man, from Melbourne’s eastern suburbs, told the Guardian. “It was just the speed with which it happened.”
When they returned to survey the damage on Thursday, the couple saw that all the group’s tents had been swept away and their caravan had shifted several metres, becoming wedged against a nearby tree.
Campers on Queensland’s Gold Coast have also had to endure some terrifying festive weather events.
A man in his 70s was injured by a tree branch that fell on to a tent in Helensvale. He was reported to be in a stable condition in hospital with pelvic and back injuries.
Ther Australian Associated Press reports that Varina Taylor was staying in a caravan park on the Gold Coast with family when storms swept through on Christmas night.
“The caravan was just rocking from the force of the wind,” she told AAP. “We knew we had trees around us, we didn’t know how bad it was out there and we just had to sit it out.”
Ms Taylor and her family eventually took shelter in the park’s toilet block, and later discovered her daughter’s van was seriously damaged.
“She lost the awning,” Ms Taylor said. “One branch came through the aircon, another branch just came randomly halfway down the caravan.”
In New South Wales, there was also significant flash flooding around the South Coast and Illawarra areas. In one incident, SES volunteers attended a caravan park in Kiama to help a family whose caravan had been impacted and who then found themselves in water up to their knees.
While there have been many stories of campers helping and suporting each other in difficult conditions, sadly, the wild weather has also highlighted some of the less noble aspects of human behaviour.
The Bendigo Advertiser reports that police there are on the hunt for thieves who they believe pinched camping equipment out of a caravan after it was damaged in the Christmas Day storm.
# Have you been affected by the wild weather over the Christmas period? Comment below.
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Yep … and they still persist on leaving large trees In caravan parks. Predominantly gums
