Red Hot Chili Peppers star Josh Klinghoffer was given a major scare during the band's trip to Australia when his parents were caught up in the Queensland floods.

The group is currently Down Under taking part in the Big Day Out touring festival, and Klinghoffer's mother and father flew to the country to support their son at the Sydney leg last week (ends20Jan13).

The couple then jetted off for a vacation in the north of the country, but their scenic drive from Cairns turned into a nightmare when they were caught in a dangerous flood on Tuesday (22Jan13).

Steven and Kathleen Klinghoffer became trapped when their car was caught on a waterlogged causeway and they had to be rescued from the waist-high flood.

The guitarist's father says of the frightening incident, "Having gone through puddles before, I figured, 'if I just go slow I can get across'. The part I didn't know, which I learned after, was that the road went deeper and deeper, a bit of a gully - what I considered a road, turned into a river. Once we hit that spot the car stalled, and we were trapped. The car got totally submerged, we were right in the middle. We are very, very thankful to everybody (who rescued us) and we learned a lesson about the outback of Australia."

The area has been experiencing severe flash flooding over the last few weeks due to torrential rain storms.