Rockhampton Australia.
4th January 2011

My thoughts and concerns are with the Gronow families in Rockhampton, Queensland Australia which is at the centre of the state's flood emergency, with its 75,000 residents bracing for the Fitzroy River to peak at about 9.4m (31ft).

The families are descended from Francis Sydney Gronow & his wife Margaret O'Shea. My thoughts especially to Grahame & Lyle Gronow & their children, who I had the pleasure in helping them with their family history not so long ago. Rockhampton, 370 miles north of Brisbane and a hub for the farming and coal-mining region, has become the focus for what officials call "biblical" floods affecting 200,000 people in an area the size of France and Germany.