Blogger and socialite Miss Chardy is not letting being stranded in the North West floods stop her from having a good time.
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Miss Chardy, who runs the blog Laughter in the Outback, was returning to her home in the Northern Territory with her family after dropping her sons off at boarding school in Brisbane, when they became stranded at McKinlay on Thursday, January 31.
They expected to get home Saturday, but that changed when monsoonal rains flooded North West Queensland.
Ms Chardy wrote in her latest blog post they had heard about all the rain and tried to make it through McKinlay before the road shut, but had no luck and has now been stranded for six days.
“Since then it has rained and rained and rained and rained. It hasn’t let up,” she wrote.
“Thankfully we are stranded at a pretty great place. You have to see the silver lining in these situations don’t you, otherwise you might just cry. We are stranded with a great bunch of people and a fantastic pub with great owners Frank and Debbie (Wust).
“Oh and did I mention the Coles and Woolworths trucks that are also stranded here? Not only is there loads of cold beer and wine in the pub there is also heaps of food in these trucks.
“Woolworths have donated pallets of food that would otherwise go bad so we are definitely not going hungry. While the shelves in the Mount Isa supermarkets have been empty we have been eating like kings.”
Those stranded in McKinlay have been lucky with their company, with country music singer Jessey Jackson playing some tunes every evening at the Walkabout Creek Hotel.
“Jessey Jackson was on her way back up to Darwin from the Tamworth Country Music Festival,” Miss Chardy said.
“She is such a great sport. Jessey has pulled out all her gear which means each night we have had live entertainment.
“I mean why would you want to go anywhere else? The beer is cold, there is loads of chardy (the wine) and the company is pretty good too. Oh and this rain is magnificent.”
Miss Chardy said the two local bartenders had also provided entertainment for the kids.
“Kelly and James have been amazing with the kids and even put on Netflix for them to watch a movie. So it turns out the Walkabout Creek Resort even has a kids club!
“I reckon we are doing ok. There is no point dwelling on things or wishing you could get the hell out of here or trying to go somewhere else. There isn’t anywhere else to go and I don’t think we would be looked after this well anywhere else.
“So we just need to sit it out patiently and make the best of a bad situation. I mean things could be far worse. We could be stranded in our car, with no air-con, no food, no bathroom and no Walkabout Creek Hotel.”
Miss Chardy thanked everyone for all their help, support and friendliness over the last week.
“Frank, Debbie, James, Kelly and Patrick for looking after us so well and thanks to everyone we are stuck here with, you have all been really great sports,” she said.
“Now lets just hope that this rain eventually reaches us in the NT otherwise it will be very sad when we do get out of here.”
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