Gulf of Carpentaria shows the power of positivity

Written on the 27th of March 2009 by Lyn Heath

Flood waters closed roads to Karumba on 2nd January 2009 for two and a half months. The town of Karumba is situated 800km west of Cairns and 600km North of Mt Isa North West Queensland. Although remote and use to limited services constant power black outs, and being cut off for a couple of weeks every year the attitude of the locals is always positive. This year however was one of the worst floods in history. The majority of the 750 people of Karumba are either self employed or work for a small business. With no airport and delayed resupply the community came to a stand still. Motels had no guests, supermarkets few customers, pubs ran out of beer and we ran out of fuel. There was little or no income for a large number of the community.

The community still managed to pull together and support the bush fires in Victoria. A weekend of fun activities took our minds off our problems and although most were out of work and businesses experiencing huge losses around $8000 was raised through charity golf, cricket matches and cake auctions.

Always keep a positive attitude and an open heart and everyone including yourself will benefit.

Business in the region is almost back to normal and we are now expecting a better than average year.