Cyclone

A category 3 cyclone hit Airlie Beach on March 21. When it hit I was on a Greyhound bus en route to Airlie Beach. The bus was delayed at various points and finally arrived about 12 hours after the cyclone hit. Most houses & shops were unharmed, the main damage was fallen trees everywhere and quite a few sailboats up on shore, and the gas station below got it pretty bad.

The power was out when I arrived and there was a weird vibe in the town. Most people around were backpackers and we were having trouble getting food. The few places that were open only accepted cash, and most were pretty expensive. And then word spread of free ice cream...the grocery store across the street from my hostel threw all their ice cream into a dumpster and there was a crowd of about 25 backpackers raiding it. I wanted to take a picture but couldn't because my hands were covered in ice cream from scavenging through the dumpster for my own share of the goodies.

This is one of the sailboats that does tours of the Whitsundays, fortunately not the boat I was signed up for

Ruminants of a boat

One sailboat on top of another

I'm not actually smiling at this sight...just my natural expression

This owner was relatively lucky...all he had to do was dig his boat out of the sand

This owner was not so lucky

The above catamaran being scrapped. It was sad to watch.