Epic

Image from ABC News Online

If you've been watching Keluin's achievement feed over to the right somewhere (for those of you not in a feed reader) you'll see he recently got the Epic achievement. However this post is actually about my epic adventure!

Just a warning - there are lots of images in this post - mostly taken with my phone's camera... so excuse the quality!

In Perth (Australia - where I live) got hit with a 'freak' storm yesterday. They are calling it the worst storm in 16 years - and it was unusual here because it was
a) unexpected
b) short
c) ferocious in its intensity

In reality it was most like a tropic storm - except we aren't in the tropics.

The first I knew about it - my bosses wife had rung him to say that one of their windows at home had been broken by a hail stone. The rest of the conversation was drowned out as the rain and hail started pounding on our office roof. Not long after the rain decided to make its way into our office, flowing down the wall into our network access and the power points half the office ran off (included the beloved coffee machine... oh and my computer too). So after shutting down my computer and removing books, cables and computers out of harms way (and not quite sending my work safely to Europe) I decided it would be best to start the journey home - figuring it was going to take me longer than normal. So I stepped outside to this:

Image from ABC News Online

I think that photo was taken a little bit later than when I went past - because I crossed the road about where that first car is without getting too wet. I was trying to make my way to the train station (which is just behind the photographer) and continued heading parallel to the station trying to find a safe place to cross. In the end I gave up and pulled off my shoes and socks and crossed here:

I'm a relatively tall man (6 foot 4, or 194 cm) - and that water came up past my knees. So I wandered across there and up to the train station bare foot. I'm glad that I get to wear shorts and a tee shirt to work!

I was wondering how water and electric powered trains work... and rather worried by this scene:

It was about at this point I rang my wife and said I was on my way home - but I'll probably be home about normal time - even though I had left about 45 minutes earlier than normal. Thankfully the train actually arrived and didn't seem worried about the rain - after one change I eventually made it to my station while waiting "for signals" at times and being generally glad I wasn't near the door - given the gale and rain that was flying past. The other passengers and I were also watching with some bemusement the large number of cars that had staled in or around the rail under passes.

Having left the train I started jogging down the platform and tried to tag off (we use smartcards here to pay for the trains) only to find there was no power on the station. This subsequently meant we had to force the gates open to get across the tracks to the car park. I jumped into my car and immediately put it into 4WD:

From there I proceeded to crawl home watching the moron P platers (Probationary drivers) roaring through the water, and enjoying the following sort of traffic

Every traffic light between the train station and my house was out (which is what that last picture is supposed to be showing). I don't think I went above 40 km/h all the way home - except at one point where I sped up and promptly hit a massive puddle on the side of the road spraying water up over the windscreen and reducing my visibility to zero. I slowed down to notice another moron driver riding my tail... in a Mitsubitshi Lancer with no clearance...

After a while I finally got to the streets around my house to survey the damage. I got to enjoy the view as I ended up following a Learner driver (the photo for that didn't work out). In my day you didn't go out to learn to drive in such weather... now days they have to keep a log book - there must be a category now on "Practice driving on flooded roads".

So there were lots of trees down at the park where I take my kids every morning:

My son used to play in that tree... and look at the size of this one (taken this morning with some day light!). That is a eucalyptus tree - they have a massive tap root going down a long way... and it just snapped!

So I made it home safely and survived driving through the floods and over some fallen trees and branches all thanks to my trusty Jeep! I love it... but I really do need massive storms like this to justify the petrol is uses - thankfully I don't drive it that much these days.

Now the adventure didn't quite end there. The Jeep was parked outside because we had no power and couldn't get the garage door open. I saw why the power died as I was driving home - a lightning  strike hit the power sub-station. Very impressive bit of lightning too I might add!

I then went inside to find towels all over the kitchen floor - apparently our house wasn't built to cope with horizontal rain and it had been flowing in through the kitchen exhaust, and making its way through windows deep under the veranda - the amount of water flying sideways can best be seen by the amount of water in the kid's sandpit and wheel barrow - both well under the veranda.

So I made it inside to find my wife trying to entertain the kids in our bedroom with candles scattered around everywhere. It was a day for achievements for her too such as:

Which had largely been brought on by my mother earning the following achievement

So after a quick candlelight dinner and a bit of screaming I got the kids to bed... which also wasn't aided by the fact that we now  had no power and no way of combating the 80% humidity and 31 degree (Celcius) temperatures... I then spent a good part of the evening cleaning up the kitchen.

However there were some positives of the whole encounter:

1. We found that our son is not afraid of thunder - in fact he was out enjoying the rain and having great fun - trying to catch the Thunder with all his toys:

2. We finally made use of all those candles I had bought my wife over the years

3. I get to enjoy Lamb Roast mid week ... as the power was off for a full 24 hours and some of the stuff in the freezer was starting to thaw - including a nice leg of lamb.

4. I was reaffirmed again how amazingly wonderful, strong and resilient my wife is. She put up with so much and with even more today without power, telephone (including her mobile going flat), and stupidly high humidity combined with high temperatures and kids that didn't really want to sleep.