Australia News LIVE: Polar blast strikes Australia causes flight delays and wild winds: What you need to know
Millions of Aussies have woken to chilly conditions as a cold front sweeps across NSW.
A severe weather warning for damaging winds is in place for large parts of the state and the ACT
The warning impacts the Sydney, Illawarra and Hunter regions, the South Coast, Southern Tablelands and parts of Mid North Coast, Central Tablelands, South West Slopes, Snowy Mountains, Australian Capital Territory and Northern Tablelands.
In Sydney's south-east, strong winds averaging 50 to 60 km/h with damaging wind gusts of up to around 90 km/h are possible throughout the day.
High winds have already wreaked havoc at Australia's busiest airport on Wednesday.
'Due to high winds, airport operations may be affected throughout the day,' an airport spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia.
'We recommend passengers check the status of their flight with their airline before traveling to the airport and we thank passengers for their patience and understanding.'
Travellers heading to the airport are urged to check their flight details and expect delays.
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4 hours ago
- Times
My mini gap year in (probably) the most extraordinary place on Earth
It's day four of the gap-year-in-one-week I'm sharing with my 18-year-old son, Rider, in Queensland and we're getting into our groove. Take two flights before lunch and you start feeling like blasé musicians on tour: 'Hello Brisbane, again! Oh hi, Hamilton Island — lookin' good!' We're in the southern hemisphere's largest island resort, 550 miles north of Brisbane, in the Whitsundays — the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef. It's hard to decide which Madonna banger best fits the bill: Into the Groove or La Isla Bonita: 'All of nature wild and free/ This is where I long to be…' We're staying at the Sundays, a stylish boutique hotel that has just been fully refurbished to the tune of £16.9 million and has been open again for precisely 24 hours. Our twin room, home for two nights, is a lovely airy space with a big balcony overlooking the glorious Catseye Beach, an even larger bathroom and a Balearic vibe, despite the fact that Ibiza and Hamilton Island are more than 10,000 miles apart. My 'on-tour' stresses start to melt away and though we've missed the hotel's lunch window we eat a couple of burgers over the road at the Hamilton Island Resort Centre, where Rider confronts his first chip-stealing flock of laughing kookaburras; like a cheeky bunch of seagulls, in drag. Fortified, we head off to collect a golf buggy — one of the only methods of transport on the car-free island — while kangaroos hop across our path. By the time we've done an island recce (it's gorgeous from every angle, a cross between The Prisoner-era Portmeirion and an animated Disney movie) the sun is slipping away. It's the perfect moment to arrive at One Tree Hill, on the island's northern tip, where buggies cluster nightly for chillaxed live music and sundowners, until a semi-acoustic cover of Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall ('Hey, teacher, leave them kids alone!') gives me and a similarly aged couple (on a mini-break from Melbourne, we've bonded while sharing a table) the collective giggles. So much so, indeed, that Rider escapes us to take sunset selfies for Snapchat, leaving the retro hits behind. Back at the hotel dinner is a wow. The chef Josh Niland is an Aussie superstar — the 'fish butcher' and his wife, Julie, run Saint Peter, a Sydney restaurant widely regarded by critics as one of the country's best, while his CV also includes a stint at the Fat Duck, Heston Blumenthal's three-Michelin-starred restaurant. At the Sundays' Catseye Pool Club, Rider says Niland's tasting menu is 'basically the best thing, ever'. From the batter fried wild fish tacos to the crumbed white Pyrenees lamb cutlets and their accompanying sides (grilled beans and pecorino polenta with the lamb, fermented pineapple hot sauce with the tacos) every dish sings. It's a great evening, with another early night for an early start. We're getting used to these. • The ultimate guide to the Great Barrier Reef: everything you need to know At the time of writing, two months later, our fifth day now feels like a fever dream. I had known for weeks that we would be joining Cruise Whitsundays' 'outer reef day cruise' and that if the weather was optimal we'd also take a 15-minute helicopter ride over the heart-shaped coral cluster at Hardy Reef. I had also known for weeks that, after the flight, we would be snorkelling and discovering the reef up close. Yeah, I knew all of this in theory, however, it wasn't until we were halfway through the two-hour boat trip from Hamilton Island to the reef that I thought, 'Hang on — where precisely are we headed? What will we see when we arrive?!' The answer: Reefworld, a permanently moored pontoon 45 miles away from the Whitsundays. At this shimmering reef-side oasis, the weather is perfect for choppers and three soon appear on the horizon, landing on their own pontoons. I'm suddenly glad I haven't spent any time contemplating being in a helicopter above the Pacific, 45 miles from dry land, because once our Hamilton Island Air pilot, Luke, is swooping us over Heart Reef, breathtaking doesn't come close to describing being a human drone, observing the contrast between the endless expanse of ocean and the reef ecosystem directly below us. This high-definition ride is one of the greatest things I've experienced. 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The biggest lesson from my mini gap year with my son
Yesterday at the Great Barrier Reef was always going to be a tough act to follow, physically and emotionally; we had scattered my son's ashes there. However, on day six of our gap-year-in-one-week my younger son, Rider, and I check out of the stylish Sundays hotel, heading to the marina for the appropriately named Reef Ryder — Hamilton Island Watersports' half-day, super-fast cruise. There is snorkelling off Chalkies beach, Haslewood Island, before hopping over to Whitehaven beach, Whitsunday Island, for more swimming and staring in wide-eyed wonder at the loveliness of it all. Rider snorkels at Chalkies, but I miss meeting a giant sea turtle by opting to hunker in the shade, contemplating our 'journey' thus far. Because it really doesn't matter how far you travel (and it's 9,721 miles from Heathrow to Chalkies beach), the cliché is true: you take yourself with you. For Rider and me, the challenge was not to 'escape' our grief at the death of his older brother, Jackson; that would be — will always be — impossible. Instead these extraordinary shared experiences are a temporary sticking plaster while we make more permanent memories. Which conceivably helps us to move forward, carrying our grief. Since Jackson left us many of those who miss him most profoundly are using his 21 years of abundant energy, charisma and zest for life as fuel to see us through the rest of our lives. Personally, after Jackson's death and my partner's recent cancer surgery I have also shrunk my universe to fit, to cope. Here, however, I sense it gently expanding again. And that feels good. At Hamilton Island's marina, it's a five-minute walk from the Reef Ryder Rib to the ferry taking us back to the mainland. 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In truth you couldn't get me on a jet ski if you paid me. Two hours later I spot jet skis shooting across the bay and have to avert my eyes. I've always tried hard not to be the kind of 'helicopter' mother who worries about young men pushing their physical boundaries — even without the benefit of a joined-up prefrontal cortex. Indeed I never was that mother until September 20 , 2023. A policeman arriving at the front door at 1.45am to tell me that my son was dead ensured I am capable of catastrophising depressingly fast these days. It's a relief when Rider eventually returns, wearing a smile as wide as the Great Barrier Reef. 'That was the best. Thing. Ever. Our guide was the coolest bloke.' He pauses … 'His name is Jackson.' While travelling together, Rider and I have learnt that you can feel simultaneously blessed and cursed, and that navigating life's extreme light and shade remains hard work. Nonetheless sharing this past week with my son has been a privilege. Courtesy of my Aussie parents, Australia has been a home from home for me for a lifetime; now it is Rider's happy place too. 'Mum — it's been incredible.' Thirty-six hours later and we're back in Brisbane airport. Rider's off to spend a month at a Muay Thai martial arts boot camp with some of his brother's friends in Thailand — where it will be his dad's turn to 'crash' our son's gap year. And though there's still an hour before his flight, after a final hug he says — gently but firmly — 'And now you can leave.' So, reluctantly, I do. Because here's another thing I've learnt the hard way: if you really love them, somehow you find the strength to let them go. Kathryn Flett is spending a month travelling in Australia. She was a guest of Tourism and Events Queensland ( The Coral Sea Resort has B&B doubles from £176 ( • Kathryn Flett: Should I crash my son's gap year?• Kathryn Flett: Yes… I crashed my son's gap year. Here's what happened• Kathryn Flett: Me, my son and the gap year I crashed: what's working (and what's not)• My mini gap year in (probably) the most extraordinary place on Earth
