The Newcastle Freeway north of Sydney is a great road…. as a major highway, it is a bit like driving on a huge roller coaster, it is a fast road with big sweeping curves and great hills and and similarly great down hill runs. (I have some pics somewhere which I will put in my album some time.) Anyway, with the rain , wind and traffic, it was a bit of a challenge…… the amount of rain caused a lot of run off, which formed like waterfalls running down the great sand stone cutting that the freeway was forged through. In turn, these waterfalls created huge puddles of water across the road in places and thus slowed the traffic down.

We exited the Freeway at Gosford. Huge amounts of water tumbling down the cuttings. …… My sisters place at Copacabana, is right out on the coast. The wind has been very strong, there are trees down along the way which hold up the traffic. We get to Copa at about 4.30pm. My sister informs us that the power has been out there since 11.00am and has only just come back on

We have arranged to go out for dinner as it is our nieces 21st…my brothers daughter, he is in Sydney and is driving up. Just as we are heading out the door at 6.00pm the power goes off again. We have to go across Gosford to drop my sisters youngest off at their other auntie and gramas house for the night and then head on for dinner.

Dinner goes well and we head home at 11.00pm. Still plenty of wind and rain. We hear on the news that a family got swept away on the Pacific Highway and count ourselves as lucky. My sister and I had planned to go to Sydney for a show the following night, but the weather is still pretty wild and we cancel/ postpone, Priscilla can wait until July and my sister and I will go and enjoy a night out without weather traumas.

So, for the rest of the weekend, we ate well and drank lots of nice wine while the wind and rain howled around us…. the roof did spring a leak, 2 tiles blew off and Ken has to fix that lean on the water tank…oh and the tree out the back dropped a branch on the neighbours fence, which Ken fixed so we could drive out down the back drive way…my sister , Gay, cooked pikelets (mini pancakes)for the neighbours breakfast as we had gas and they had no electricity and boiled water for a cuppa…..ha…it was a bit of fun…… we were lucky, there was flooding not far north of us, we just had bad weather. The sea was really rough, huge dumpers and a lot of white water…..

The biggest tragedy was the family lost on the Pacific Highway (not far from where I was ) when the road collapsed and was washed away, car and family of 5 and all……. Most of the damage was a little north of of where my sister lives, so we were lucky not to have had a worse time.

Today the drive home was good, no rain and bits of sunshine….got home about 5.00pm.

We didn’t get to see our stage show, but no matter, I’m hoping that will be a champagne adventure in July