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Premium surf in Cairns.
"It's really good, it's just a lot of big, open, ocean water. You're paddling the whole time, you're just doing laps around. It's pretty sick, it's special when it happens. I flew up from Sydney for this. It's pretty on."
Some surfers are undeterred by impending Tropical Cyclone Alfred.
"There's a few big ones down in Kewarra, there's some pretty round ones. Some crazy action if you get down there on the point. We wait for this stuff for sure. It's cleaned up a lot the last couple of days but I think this could be the day."
But further south, in the Gold Coast, beaches are isolated.
Gold Coast Acting Mayor, Donna Gates, is urging compliance as a disaster event looms.
"Please note that every beach on the Gold Coast is closed. There are hazardous conditions on the beach, so stay away from the beaches. If you happen to be there, the lifeguards will still be on duty and you should listen to the lifeguards."
Cyclone Alfred is expected to turn towards Queensland's coast on Tuesday, before making landfall between K'gari and the Gold Coast later in the week.
It's the first cyclone to hit the southeast since Cyclone Zoe crossed at Coolangatta in 1974.
With 800 millimetres of rain forecast on the Gold Coast alone, some residents are choosing to evacuate the area until it passes.
SPEAKER 1: "Well, we don't want to sit here and get our arses whooped. Cyclones are very unpredictable."
SPEAKER 2: "It looks pretty bad, it really does. I'm pretty scared about it. We're being told to take all cautions so I think everyone should be serious to do that."
Alfred has intensified from a category-one to category-two system, forecast to bring destructive winds, heavy rain, flash flooding and significant coastal erosion.
Senior forecaster at the Bureau of Meteorology, Angus Hines, has the details.
"Even though Alfred is a long way offshore during Tuesday, it will be gusty and showery across the southeast with large and potentially dangerous waves across this coastline. We could also see a few showers push onto other parts of eastern Queensland, perhaps about as far north as Mackay may be up to Townsville, but looking unlikely to get any further north than that."
Colleague Jonathan How says the impact is likely to be substantial.
"We can expect to see moderate to major flooding, particularly for New South Wales, but also southeast Queensland. And this includes quite a few major rivers - and major population centres, with rainfall totals expected to exceed 200-400 millimetres across a wide area. In addition to that, we still do have those very powerful easterly waves coming through, combining with high tides and that is causing quite a significant and severe coastal erosion, and causing a lot of those beaches to be eaten away."
Over the weekend, conditions across Queensland were relatively mild.
But Ms Gates says complacency could cost lives.
"We never want to be the boy who cried wolf, but quite clearly this is an extraordinary event and we had such a beautiful sunny weekend that it was probably hard for people to anticipate what's about to hit us if all of the modeling comes to be. So yes, we need to take it seriously. It will be great if it swings back out to sea, but it doesn't look likely at the moment."
Across Queensland, flood preparations are well underway.
At a sandbagging station, this resident says she's heeding advice to protect her home.
"We live in Wishart and we have a water problem running from the back of the houses down through our property and therefore we just want some sandbags to redirect the water. We are just worried about the rain and the water. If there's going to be that much then we'd rather be prepared.”
A record 74,000 sandbags were filled on Monday, as people queued for hours to get their allocation.
That number more than doubles the previous sandbag distribution record set during the 2022 floods.
Also in the impact zone – the Northern Rivers region in New South Wales.
Premier Chris Minns is urging people not to panic-buy, as he pledges to get as much early information as possible to affected communities.
"There's no reason to panic buy what will happen if you take everything off the shelves, is that you're not going to leave enough for your neighbours and your friends and other people in the community. We've got good logistic and supply contingencies in place. Most people don't act this way. By the way, most people are fantastic and the Northern Rivers community are the most resilient people in that country.”
The SES has deployed additional flood rescue and storm operators to support local teams in northern areas.
To mitigate the strain on those services, Mr Minns has delivered this message.
"My number one message is: download the hazards near me app, listen to emergency broadcast particularly from the SES, and lastly but most importantly, don't drive through floodwaters. It's the single best way of killing yourself, someone else in your car or an emergency services worker who has to put their own life in danger to try to rescue you.”
