Stress, sadness, sour smell and slime: Qld floods

St George is located 210 km south-east of Mitchell, on the Balonne River. Today the town is a disaster zone. The evacuation of the entire town of 3,000 people has been ordered.

Mitchell's Maranoa River and Roma's Warrego River (both of which are running at record heights and have flooded the above towns this past week) join together to become the Balonne River at St George. The authorities expect St George to be flooded today and tomorrow, with the Balonne River level way above anything recorded in white history.

Meanwhile, Doug flew from Brisbane to Roma this afternoon. When the Mitchell road bridge opens to traffic, our friend Richard will drive to Roma and bring Doug home to Mitchell.

With many offers of overnight accommodation, cars and help, Doug will be cared for by friends and neighbours while he assesses damage to our home and the town. It's all very traumatic, even from down here at Phillip Island.

So much water, mud and mould.

So much stress, sadness, sour smell and slime.

Such opportunity for kindness, support and caring.

Disaster tends to bring out the best in most people and this is certainly evident in Mitchell. Outback Australia is well-known as a place where people are resilient and the spirit of mateship is strong.

PS
In order to lighten this blog I'll include two photos of a sea squirt I found on our Phillip Island beach last week. These primitive creatures are only washed up occasionally, after stormy seas. Every time I find a sea squirt I feel myself transported into another world and another time.

Sea tulip: plant or animal?

Recent storms and heavy seas mean that lots of interesting flotsam has washed ashore. My latest find is a sea tulip.

Although a sea tulip looks very much like a plant it's actually a primitive animal related closely to the sea squirt (for photos and details about sea squirts, please go to my December 15 blog titled 'An alien tossed ashore: Phillip Island').

This stalked cunjevoi is tulip-shaped and comes in colours varying from shades of vivid yellow to red. Other references describe the sea tulip as a small, rough, irregularly shaped potato at the end of a stalk.

The sea tulip attaches itself to a submerged rock at a level just below the low tide -- on ocean shores all around the Australian coast.

A sea tulip is a fascinating creature in that it looks like a plant but is, in fact, an animal.

An alien tossed ashore: Phillip Island

After a week of heavy seas, waves have tossed ashore a variety of treasures, the main ones being young and adult sea squirts (cunjevoi).

These strange creatures have the look of an alien species -- at least they do to me!

Found mainly in southern Australian waters, on rocky reefs near low water mark, this remarkable creature has an outer surface like coarse reddish-orange sand paper, the perfect 'tunic' to protect the sea squirt from sharp rocks and heavy seas.

The name sea squirt came about because of the way this creature forcefully squirts out jets of water from its large twin tubes; tubes that both breathe for and feed this primitive creature.

I hope you enjoy looking at the photos of these remarkable sea animals as much as I enjoyed finding them.