At a farewell meal just over a month ago near Bingley, friends presented me with a small miniature bottle filled with “Finest English Rain” saying you won’t be getting much water where you are headed for.

That destination was Ipswich, Queensland, with my Australian-born-and-raised partner Melissa Devin.

Now, she had spent the previous 11 years in Yorkshire – the past ten years in Bingley – sampling the best in Tyke weather – sun, snow, frost and fog.

But nothing quite prepares you for the weather patterns that brought floods to Ipswich and the nearby Queensland capital Brisbane to the centre of worldwide TV coverage this week.

Melissa, a former internal auditor with the Yorkshire Building Society in Bradford, and I had met in Australia in 1996 and I’d made numerous visits to this part of the world, and throughout the last decade remember the drought-hit state of the region with the local dam running as low as 20 per cent of its capacity.

Today, the Wivenhoe Dam is at 190 per cent, almost double its capacity.

We’ve been in this part of the world for just over four weeks having escaped the best of the British snow in mid-December.

In fact, the 20-foot container with our boxed-up possessions had its departure delayed due to the white stuff. It’s due in Brisbane in two weeks’ time but considering the wet weather patterns predicted for the coming weeks and the clean-up and re-building to come in the city, perhaps the high seas is the best place for our goods at the moment.

Melissa’s family live around Ipswich and so we headed here to start the next chapter of our life – an area where coal was once king, the rail industry strong and rugby league part of the heritage.

As a journalist in Yorkshire for more than 25 years, I’ve seen the best and worst of the region including the miner’s strike of the mid-1980s and all the weather patterns nature can throw at the UK.

But the amount of water that can turn a quiet, calm flowing small river into a monstrous swelling torrent is difficult to comprehend unless you’ve seen it at first hand.

Central Queensland had already been covered in flood water since our arrival, but in a land mass where Germany and France can be fit inside Queensland with space left over, the unfolding events north of here had only resulted in TV viewing after Christmas and a donation in the Premier’s Flood Appeal bucket at a local store.

But a mini-tsunami in the nearby town of Toowoomba, about 60km west of Ipswich, caught our attention on Monday. By the following morning, heavy rain had brought an alert the local river, the Bremer, could peak around levels not seen since 1974 when much of Ipswich and Brisbane were flooded in a supposedly once-in-a-lifetime event.

Our accommodation had escaped flooding 37 years ago but with the river snaking its way through the town, there was sure to be large scale devastation ahead.

The local supermarket suddenly filled with shoppers, and within hours the queues made Christmas Eve wait times seem quick.

Water, batteries for torches and radios, bread, milk and packed ice soon disappeared off the shelves and a quick stop was made for a new gas bottle for the BBQ – you’ve still got to cook when you lose power.

Later in the day, weather predictions raised concerns with the anticipated levels being 22 metres. Back in 1974, it had been just over 20 metres.

Located in a town suburb with difficult access to the emergency shelters being set up by the local authority and knowing higher ground was just around the corner, bags were packed in the car for a quick escape.

For Melissa and I, the choice was relatively simple – we had arrived with two suitcases so clothing and paperwork went back from where it had been unpacked from. For Melissa’s mother and brother, family pictures and clothing took priority.

There is no answer to the force of nature. You prepare and then sit and wait, hoping for the best, anticipating the worst.

Just 400 metres down the road, we walked and watched with neighbours as the river levels rose late on Tuesday as one of the local crossing points became flooded. By the following morning, riverside homes were under water but the afternoon peak saw levels rest at 19.4 metres.

One resident close to the river calmly cut his lawn edges and tidied his garden confident the rising levels wouldn’t reach his green fields, a neighbour 20 metres away had already evacuated with flood water lapping the ground floor of his two-storey detached property.

That height of 19.4 metres was enough for us to stay dry and safe. Power had been cut in the early hours of Wednesday as I sat in the dark listening as the traffic passed by – empty 4x4s and trailers heading towards friends and family near the river returning piled high with rescued household possessions.

As the waters peaked, the image was almost surreal. A typical Queensland day with blue sky and not a cloud in it, around 28 degrees centigrade, children playing in the public park opposite.

But around a town of 170,000 people, almost a third of the land was covered in flood water.

The roof tops of properties peaked out of the water for the worst affected – for Melissa and myself, we survived like our neighbours on a small island of dry land surrounded by water flooding out of the Bremer River.

As power was restored on Thursday afternoon, the local postman delivered the daily mail. A small sign of normality but for many in this town, the devastation will take weeks and months to recover and then years to re-build.

The clean-up process quickly started, in fact the flood waters had nearly gone by yesterday disappearing nearly as quickly as they arrived and our local store was back open – albeit on a small scale just letting in 50 people at a time. Crossing points were being examined by safety officers before vehicles were let across.

Neighbours and friends were helping each other and the list of volunteers to help with the clean-up swelling at a quick pace.