All is quiet on New Year's Day

THANK GOD MY FAMILY AND I ARE ALIVE!

While we were away on holiday in Eden, New South Wales, over the Christmas holidays, we were promptly interrupted at 7pm on New Years Eve to evacuate our cabin as the alarming bush fires were overtaking many parts of New South Wales. We received a text message instructing us to evacuate to the Eden Fisherman's Club where we slept on the floor between some pokies machines with hundreds of other people! That sounds like the most bizarre thing, but it is true. You can't make these things up!

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It felt like an apocalypse - supermarkets were running out of food and petrol stations were running out of petrol/diesel because trucks couldn't enter through the thick smoke to deliver anything. Phone and internet lines were being destroyed too, making contact impossible for some.

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To be frank, I was terrified that were were going to burn to death as fires were approaching Eden from both sides.

We left Eden on the first day of 2020, driving 7 hours to get out of there, only to find that we were driving straight towards a fire region - our fire app was giving us incorrect information.

Canberra. Source

We drove another 3 hours to Canberra, booked a hotel room and stayed there for the night. Even there we weren't able to escape the thick smoke. News reports declared that Canberra had the worst air quality in the world caused by the NSW fires. The smoke has even spread to New Zealand! It's amazing that I didn't suffocate as I have asthma.

On 2nd January, we drove 8 hours from Canberra back home to Melbourne, through very thick smoke, where we could only just see the car driving in front of us.

The amount of times I've burst into tears over the last couple of days has been overwhelming. I truthfully thought we'd never get out of there. I cannot watch another second of the news as the fires spreading through NSW and Victoria are terrifying. So many people have already died and hundreds of homes have been burnt down.

I want to say thank you to all the firefighters, charities and everyone else who protected us and so many people who are still stuck in the bush fires. I am praying that every person, family, young child, elderly person and the many animals we passed along the way are safe from these fires.

The photos below were captured on our last day in Eden. They don't fully capture the smoke haze that created a strange atmosphere. There were days when everything was yellow and there was a fluorescent red sun. Even though we were sad to have our holiday cut short, in the grand scheme of things we are very glad to be safe at home.

Title: New Year's Day by U2.
(I'm not sure I'll be able to listen to this song the same way again).