before the flood

It would have been hard to imagine, when I took this photograph not far from Brett’s Wharf on the Brisbane river that within a few weeks this very site would have been underwater, or that the River Cat that we travelled on would be out of action for up to six months (due to the damage done to most of the ferry terminals). In Brisbane’s botanic gardens there is a post that shows the height of the previous severe floods in 1974. The current floods, now receding, didn’t quite get to the same level but the destruction has probably been much more severe this time around. As the state Premier Anna Bligh noted, in 1974 Brisbane was more like a large country town. Now it’s a city of some three million people. While in Brisbane we stayed in West End, an inner suburb severely affected by the flood, though we were in a house that would have been well above the water level. Just down the hill from us was this corner shop (pictured below, courtesy of Kerry Kilner).