January 24th

What an eventful week in the bay. I don’t even need to resort to pithy editorial about the lifestyle-rich, wage-poor region for your reading pleasure, instead here are 3 juicy news morsels for you.

Tragedy this week in Ballina on the South beach, just over the wall. A man jumped into the surf to rescue his wife who had been caught in a rip which ultimately claimed them both, their children helpless on the shore. The community has been left shocked, and reminded of the dangers of powerful ocean which should never be taken for granted. National news media and local collections have been set up to raise some money for the now orphaned children.

In other news, a 3m white pointer was spotted yesterday at Watego’s beach (near the lighthouse) closing the beach temporarily. Sharks are common around Julian Rocks, a popular diving spot off the bay and attacks are rare, but it’s always good to be cautious on such a popular beach!

Finally I just wanted to repost Will Anderson’s recent tweet about the sad end to Ballina’s Big Prawn. He (she?) will be missed greatly. The prawn that is, not Will Anderson.

@Wil_Anderson: News: Ballina’s Big Prawn to be demolished. As a tribute they should throw away the head and the tail first…

June 7th

On the night of the storm, after days of torrential rain the wind suddenly started to scream. The windows were bending and the house creaked as it strained against for force of the gale. I looked out at the river which had swelled around the bottom of the house and then the power failed. In the next ten minutes the full force of the storm bore down upon Ballina.

When it was over the rain and the wind stopped and it was dead calm. I stepped outside and heard a boatman yelling from across the river as he had lost his moorings and ended up in the mangroves. I went down and cleared some of the fallen branches from the road and helped a neighbor remove debris as they cut a tree off their roof. In the morning the damage was obvious, signs, fences, trees.. anything that could be broken was. Power poles had fallen nearby so I went to the local McDonalds to
use their internet hotspot and get some work done.

Over a week has passed and the cleanup continues. Trees still lay across power lines nearby my house. The floodwaters have disappeared and the sun is out again now but this was a big one. What amazed me most was how much beach we lost. The pathways to the beach in Lennox and Ballina have been decimated, much of it stripped away leaving only sand cliffs and bare rocks. South Ballina beach is missing huge amounts of sand.

I’ll leave a few pictures below I’ve taken post-storms. Not much to say really except hope the weather plays nice for a while. This region has copped it pretty badly.