Oh, my, Mother Nature...

I live in the amazing state of Queensland. I consider myself a Queenslander first and an Australian second. But nowhere is immune to Mother Nature's power and here, tropical cyclones are her most common weapon of choice.


As I write we're staring down Cyclone Debbie, and she's quite a big one. Cyclones can be as severe as a category five; on Tuesday Debbie peaked at four. Where I am she's given us a heap of rain and some winds, but the eye is further north, so for me it could be far worse.

Cyclone Debbie's path.

But this time in 2015, it was. That was Cyclone Marcia, and what a bitch she was. She was a category five, and somehow I actually slept through part of her demolition derby. But the next morning, a Saturday, as I walked downtown to see if the shops had power I could use, for lack of a better cliché it just resembled a warzone. One fallen tree after another, streams in the gutters, litter galore. Even a huge palm tree nearly knocking a power pole over. I'll never forget any of that, and we were without power for eight days.

Cyclone Marcia's path.

But I believe such weather events are simply nature's way of fighting back, and to teach us all some crucial lessons: that we mustn't take life's essentials for granted, we CAN live without modern technology for a decent period of time, and above all else, that we must never underestimate nature or take it for granted. Yet, we shouldn't need a meteorological disaster to be reminded of any of those. After all, we belong to nature ourselves.

Nonetheless, my thoughts at this time are fully with all my fellow Queenslanders who've had to bear Debbie her strongest. Please stay safe and dry; you know the rest. I can say from how Central Queensland recovered from Marcia that we'll all come away stronger than ever. Debbie has fucked with the wrong state.