Gumboot. Apt. Tully. Wettest place in Australia. Adopting the welly as its symbol. A hollow glass fibre mock-up on the edge of the town. Its height representing the typical annual rainfall. Well over six metres. Quite a bit of which, it felt, had fallen in the last few days.
"No snags" she said. A little disappointed. "Not one". Prince William, it seemed, had skipped the sausages – snags – cooking on the barbeque when he’d visited Tully the previous day. Part of his flying visit – quite literally – to some of the Queensland communities worst hit by Cyclone Yasi a few months earlier.
I’d deliberately stayed away. Don’t do crowds. Besides, he’d come to meet Queenslanders. Not yours truly. However tempting a free snag or two might be for a hungry cyclist. But I did get the chance to give him a wave on the day. Eight minutes to three. Three Black Hawk helicopters. "V" formation. Heading north.
