Soggy Pies!

Wet pies.

Here's the world famous Yatala Pie Shop - under water! The Cyclone that affected Northern Queensland turned into a major storm in Southern Queensland and dumped a metre or two of rain resulting in widespread flooding - this is one of the casualties. We drove past but weren't able to go through the drive in section of the pie shop - was hoping the try the Traddie Pie (steak, bacon, cheese, tomato and egg).

All roads lead to the river.

This is the Royal Automobile Club of Queensland's map of the traffic problems near Brisbane on Saturday morning. Flooded roads are represented by the blue symbols, the red symbols are closed roads that have been affected by the floods, yellow signs indicate hazards such as debris or fallen trees on the road. We thought we were marooned at Mount Tamborine but somehow managed to find a way through back to Brisbane!

And we're still managing to find nice beer - these are some of our favourites at the Embassy Bar in the city.

I'll have some of what Roger's having...........

...............and I'll have a jug of kippers.

Talking of pie shops reminds me of Colm O'Rourke who was a contemporary of Tim Martin the Wetherspoons man. In the 1980's Colm had a similar idea for a chain of traditional pubs serving good beer but his USP was somewhat wacky. His twenty or so ale houses were in the midlands and the flagship pub was called Mad O'Rourke's Pie Factory at Tipton, dish of the day was always the Desperate Dan Cow Pie! Other outlets included The Little Tumbling Sailors in the back streets of Kidderminster which featured Britain's only inland lighthouse and The Little Sauce Factory in Worcester (where else!) The only one in the chain that I visited was at Willenhall, this being Mad O'Rourke's Kipper House which was a refuelling stop to break a long car journey back from Devon to Manchester. Sadly in 1999 Colm made the mistake of selling his chain to Usher's of Trowbridge who, according to a contemporary reporter,  "spectacularly ruined the company."

Are you desperate, Dan?