Tweed Coast Treadly » Dear Diary

Still here, Just…

fingers — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 09:48:47 +0000

Boring update. Still riding not as often as my mind wants but my knees are very thankful. Gettimg in 3×30 kms rides a week. Mostly on the commuter riding home from work. But still getting on the simple mtb and even managed a quiet cruise to the top of Cudgera Creek Road, all without my knees more than twitching. I was surprised with the clean and smoth surface of the road, although the wheel tracks of the Rollers were still visible on the edges of the gravel road…

Another update

fingers — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 05:51:19 +0000

Watch and Act: Cudgen (Depot Road Fire) Fire Update 08/12/09 15:34

Posted: 08/12/2009

A fire continues to burn in bushland to the west of Cabarita Beach in the Bogangar and Tanglewood area.

Current Situation

The fire has continued to burn in a southerly direction in the vicinty of Sliprails Road, Clothiers Creek Road, Tanglewood Drive and Wally Bishop Rd, under the influence of gusty northerly winds.

Clothiers Creek Road is closed due to fire activity and smoke is impacting the Pacific Highway south of Clothiers Creek Road and north of Round Mountain Road.

There are several rural properties which may come under threat during the afternoon as the fire continues to burn towards Round Mountain Road. Firefighters are identifying containment lines and undertaking property protection where necessary.

A Bushfire Information Point will be established at the Cabarita Beach Sports Club, Cabarita Road, Bogangar, this evening (Tuesday December between 6:00pm and 8:00pm. Residents and visitors to area are welcome to attend and receive bush fire updates and information.

8-arvo

This is the way they saw it it has moved much closer to the freeway and Marks house with 2 helecopters bombing it continually at 4:00pm as i saw on my way home the long was as Watty and Clothiers were closed and i came back around via Kanes Road the smoke is more wide spread though less intense. From the map Jims was close if not very close to being threatened today / last night. The wind is still just as strong as yesterday . More crews are battling the blaze etc but information is still just as hard to come by. Maybe “they” think no news is good news although isn’t it better to not let false rumours spread….

There is an information meeting at the Caba Bowls club this afternoon, might go and get up to allowed speed…

Update:

Just came back from bogangar meeting, lecture and not much to report except that they feel it is containd and will be a mop up for about 3-4 days and Clothiers Creek Road will continue to be closed often. Also rode up to Jims through the Smoke to see that the fire front had not long ago arrived to start circling his place, it had been traveling at snails pace down towards him for the last 24 hours… so he should be safe now from any wind shifts etc the fire units are watching the slow progress but see no need to attack the very, very slow moving downhill front

Watch and Act: Cudgen (Depot Road Fire) Fire Update 08/12/09 17:42

Posted: 08/12/2009

A fire continues to burn in bushland to the west of Cabarita Beach in the Bogangar and Tanglewood area.

Current Situation

The fire has continued to burn in a southerly direction in the vicinty of Sliprails Road, Clothiers Creek Road, Tanglewood Drive and Wally Bishop Rd, under the influence of gusty northerly winds.

Clothiers Creek Road is closed intermittently due to fire activity and the Pacific Highway may at times be impacted by smoke. Motorists should proceed with caution and take advice from police on the scene as to road access.

Day 2 plus

fingers — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 20:14:43 +0000

Watch and Act: Cudgen (Depot Road Fire) Fire Update 08/12/09 06:31

Posted: 08/12/2009

More information…

A fire continues to burn in bushland to the west of Cabarita Beach in the Bogangar and Tanglewood area.

Watch and Act: Cudgen (Depot Road Fire) Fire Update 08/12/09 06:31

Posted: 08/12/2009

A fire continues to burn in bushland to the west of Cabarita Beach in the Bogangar and Tanglewood area.

Current Situation

The fire overnight continued to burn in bushland in the area of Sliprails Road, Clothiers Creek Road Tanglewood Drive and Wally Bishop Rd. So far the fire has burnt over 600 hectares of bushland.

The fire continues to burn in a southerly direction under strong northerly winds, these winds are expected to continue today.

There are several rural properties which may come under threat during today as the fire continues to burn towards Round Mountain Road

Firefighters are identifying containment lines and undertaking property protection where necessary.

Fire Update 7th December 2009

fingers — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 12:30:45 +0000

I haven’t been far from home for obvious reasons tonight. Though this afternoon I visited Jims at the end of Towners Road, the fire was fairly close but only observed the edge of the thick smoke coming off the strong North North Easterlies. He had made a lot of preparations just in case as he was alone. While we chatted a few dead ash embers drifted down. After I left later I heard from another neighbour that he was starting to get live embers falling, luckly the wind has dropped a bit. The smoke at home has been a lot more bareable than just a little further East and West where it is stinging the eyes and turning headlights into white glowing balls of light.

A brigade truck is continually patrolling slowly up and down Towners road, possibly looking for any spotting. As the fire is due North of here I will stay up until 3:00am and then let the misses take over. It even looks like I might not get to work Tomorrow…. wait and see! At this stage it looks like we might be missing the worst situations, luckily for us, but anthing could yet happen. It is so dry around here the marshes ar tinder dry and the undergrowth in those areas are dead or dormant dry, even the mosses and reeds.

I have heard a bit of hearsay that the fire is not really threatening the area around Sliprails Road. This is the area wfor us to worry about most as that would give the fire front a diect path to reach us with the current winds.

When I drove home at 5:30pm this arvo the rubber-neckers were out in force parked along the sides of Clothiers Creek Road drinking beers and watching the three helecopters waterbombing to save the houses in Tanglewood. It hasn’t been confirmed but I was told that none were lost.

The 2 other close loacl fires, Eviron Road and Depot Road I know very little about, except what Marks’ misses told me as she was on the way to dropping here kids off at there granparents for safety and that the Eastern smoke plume is from the Depot Road/Camp Wollumbin area.

Windy Flats

fingers — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:17:54 +0000

This afternoon I rode to a small short job at Hastings Point and finished just as the storm was nearly breaking. Nearly, because there was a lot of promise but nothing eventuated with it just rushing out to sea. Anyway my daughter had asked me to show her the route to Kingscliff via Salt so I gave her a call and said I would meet her at Cabba Cycles, (I needed a spare tube for the cypress). Off I rode into the 35-40km/hr Northerly at a chugging 15km /hour.

We joined up and I let her draught me on her 3 speed Beach Cruiser and we managed to sit on a constant 18 km/hr along the bike path up through Casuarina. At the end of the current path we entered the old Coast Road section, which has been denuded of all vegetation in preparation of the stalled development, and the wind just cut us to shreds getting us to suffer dropping to 12 km/hr.

At the sand pit, Salt, we just turned around and floated back home at a leisurely peddled 25 km/hr.

Making 26 kilometres all up. The return trip took less than half the time as the North bound journey had.