Sunday it again poured rain. The newscasts talked about the heaviest rains in a generation and showed pictures of the awful flooding around the Sydney area.
Car caught trying to cross a flooded road 
Sea suds thrown up over the sea wall 
Rescues in many neighborhoods 
Downed trees causing power outages and road closures 
Rainfall amounts
To understand the rainfall amounts, 517 mm equals just over 20 inches in just 24 hours. That’s a lot of water! Around the Canberra area, an area hit very hard by the bushfires, the residences not burned down in the bushfires are now flooded to the second floor. It’s a really sad and horrible situation for many.
We have not been significantly affected by flooding in Lou’s area, other than having to be home-bound due to heavy rain. But we did go out Sunday afternoon to Bradley and Fiona’s to celebrate Brad’s birthday. Gloria and Alex joined us and we had a nice afternoon sitting in a covered porch area enjoying each other’s company, eating yummy cake and commenting on the pouring rain going on outside.
The smiling birthday boy 
Brad and Fiona 
Brad and his dad Alex 
Lovely entryway to Brad/Fiona’s house
On Monday morning, it wasn’t raining so we did some chores around the house. Then Lou got us out and about in the afternoon. He took us to Mt. Ettalong where there is a very nice short walk along the ridge. It’s part of the Brisbane Water National Park. At the end of the trail there are 2 lookouts offering great views of the area.
I really love walking through the bush, especially when we aren’t bothered by Mozzies! Surprisingly, even after all the rain, we weren’t attacked by any Mozzies, thank goodness. But I am in love with the gum trees. There are so many varieties and they are so interesting. At Tony’s, most of the gum trees were giants with long, straight trunks. Along this trail, the gum trees, although large, were many-branched resulting in beautiful shapes and sizes.
Red color of these trees 
Branches go in every direction 
Lots of branches on this tree 
Beautiful Sydney Red Gum
The trail was just lovely to stroll along.
Mt. Ettalong Lookouts trail 
Christine, Lou and Banjo 
Beautiful trail
After strolling through the bush we arrived at some fabulous lookouts, one looking to the south and one to the east. The view to the south overlooked beautiful Pearl Beach.
Lion Island and Pearl Beach 
Pearl Beach 
Christine at the Mt. Ettalong Lookout 
Pearl Beach
From the east lookout we could see Ocean Beach and Umina Beach. We also could follow the coast across the water to where we walked the Bouddi Coastal Walk from Putty Beach to Maitland Bay. We really like seeing the sights from different perspectives.
Ocean and Umina Beaches 
Broken Bay 
Bouddi NP across the bay
From the Mt. Ettalong lookouts we drove down to Pearl Beach. It’s a lovely beach, but the terrible weather over the past 4 days caused lots of debris and yucky stuff to be in the surf, so it wasn’t inviting for swimming so Christine and I took a walk. It’s always wonderful walking along a beach listening to the surf. It was interesting to see essentially a creek running across the beach, caused by all the rain runoff. At the end of the beach was some really interesting rock formations in the sandstone with wonderful colors and patterns. There was also a rock pool, basically a swimming pool that gets filled by the sea water. We enjoyed our walk.
Creek running across Pearl Beach 
Creek making its way to the ocean 
Cool sandstone 
Pattern in the sandstone 
Christine looking at the sandstone patterns 
Rock pool at Pearl Beach
After a few days of not getting out of the house, it was great to be outside enjoying nature and exploring. It was a very nice day.