Some recent flood photos

It's that time of year again (apparently). With the cyclone (see earlier post) came the rain, and with the rain came the rising of the river. Wilson's River peaked at just under 10 metres, cutting us off from nearby towns and villages. The wind hurled several trees to the ground, narrowly (and in some cases not) missing sheds and houses. We lost power for three days, which also meant no pumped water ... But hey, it poured from the sky so that was not really an issue ...

Between Sunday and Tuesday the river rose sharply

A fig tree fell on our neighbour Rick's shed (photo by Grace Westera)

And another one just skimmed his house (photo Grace Westera). Rick was OK though.

Boatharbour Road could well be ... just Boatharbour?

50: no, no ...

All in all it took about five days for relative normality to return. No real harm done here other than perished food in the freezer ("Happy Days!" sang the dogs ... Om nom nom!!!) and two of our horses became ill with some sort of mud fever, perhaps stress related. But they're a lot better now.

John and I were fine and used our camping stove to cook, candles and solar to provide light ... we relaxed and read books, and since there was no internet we even did a jigsaw puzzle  ... :-)

Dennis' birthday and a cyclone

On the weekend John and I went to visit our dear friends Dennis and Amanda in Beachmere (which was just recovering from bushfires) to celebrate Dennis' birthday. But instead of extended family and a barbecue lunch, Dennis and Amanda got a visit from ex tropical cyclone Oswald, as king tide and flood waters causing a sea surge came over the sea wall and flooded the town. Good Beachmere residents came and helped each other but the damage would have been extensive.

So Dennis' birthday lunch was just us awesome foursome with quite wet feet ... and even John and I had to leave early so as not to be caught by more flooding. But we had a lovely time with Dennis and Amanda, and we agree that Beachmere is a *really* exciting place to visit!

Rain and wind lash the coast and the tide comes in. It was hard to stand up here.

A quiet place to meditate and watch the ocean?

The sea water floods the town. Nothing to be done, Mother Nature's in charge here ...

I made a short video as the water came in over the sea wall, probably to the detriment of my good camera...

 

Dennis helped neighbours and friends and meanwhile, the resilient and resourceful Amanda drummed up a  lovely lunch after all ...

Calm during the storm ...

Thank you Dennis and Amanda for a lovely weekend!


After a rather difficult trip with torrential rain and much wind, we made it home safely, just before more cyclonic winds hit our farm. More updates on that to follow.

Flood time again!

This Australia Day finds John and myself marooned by floodwaters, the Wilson River having risen nearly 10 metres in 48 hours and broken its banks, flooding the valley (well it would). Mind you, I'm not complaining: here we are, marooned on a subtropical hill in paradise, the village store only a minute down the road and a bit further on the Eltham pub with the floodwaters slipping quietly just under the bridge. We might nip down for a beer and to listen to some local music later. Here are some photos:

BOM river heights data for the Wilson River shows the rapid rise in water. How many m3 I wonder?

Large camphor laurel trees standing in their own reflections down near Boatharbour Rd

A view of Eltham village heights from the valley on Eltham Rd

John brings the Hilux to a halt upon hitting some low floodwaters

Looking on the railway bridge and the valley from Johnston Road

This is where you can hire a tractor. But not today.

A row of pecan trees fetlock deep in the water

Eltham and Booyong valleys, where a small river can suddenly become very big ...

Rainwater maths

Since we hooked the tanks up to the guttering, 77 mm of rain has fallen, which has filled the first tank to 3/4 of its height.  Given that the tanks are 22700 litres in capacity, that means the 77mm rainfall has given us 17062 litres of water. So, each mm of rain falling on our roof gives us approx 221 litres of water (not a bad deal). Our annual water consumption is 195,803 liters (well it was last year). Annual average rainfall in this area is 1793 mm, which should offer us a potential 396,253 litres per annum. Theoretically, that is: at times, the tanks will overflow. But in general, we should have enough storage, unless we hit a very dry spell.

Here below is an image of the impact of the last 77mm of rainfall on our local river, the Wilson River at Eltham.  Not unusually, it's risen by about 3 metres.

Damp days: flooding in QLD and Northern Rivers NSW

There is much lovely stuff that I have not yet blogged about, such as Sarah's graduation and Briony's birthday and the two short but lovely holidays on Stradbroke Island. But it's raining and damp and floods have been affecting Northern NSW and QLD. At the time of writing Brisbane CBD is being evacuated, Ipswich has been evacuated and closed down (the electricity to the city has been turned off); and Toowoomba is reeling from the flash flooding. Gympie is cut in half by floods (you OK, Tony and Tuffy?). I sincerely feel for those who are affected by the floods, espeically those who have lost homes and family.

Fortunately, here at The Grange we're so high on the ridge that I cannot imagine a flood ever reaching our house (though we do get rain inundations which turn our driveway into a small creek and we frequently get cut off by road when the Wilson River breaks its banks, which it does at around the 8 metre mark.).

The video below shows the astounding speed at which a flash flood develops, as well as its incredible power as it sweeps the cars away.

Photo: Sydney Morning Herald

The rain in Spain...

...falls mainly in the Wilson River catchment area?

We've got lovely house guests at present, Erin and David from America. (Erin in her undergraduate days used to come here on holidays with Oceane when Oce was at university; David is her partner). The weather gods have been treating them to an interesting time! 

After days of rain and storms, we had more huge downpours (160 mm fell overnight). The Wilson River rose nearly 8 metres in 48 hours, cutting off many of the valley roads as it broke its banks. This afternoon Tess, Erin and I went and explored the flooded areas and took many photos. We noticed an extraordinary number of insects trying to escape the floodwaters: spiders, crickets, beetles, and worms scrambled onto our legs for safety as we waded through the water (erm, worms can't scramble. They kind of slither... or wriggle ... sliggle ... writhle... whatever). What with them and the many leeches that appeared out of nowhere, it creeped Tess out a little: she's a brave lass but too many bugs are just *too many bugs*!

The downpour damaged our driveway, turning it into a small creek gully, as the masses of water washed our driveway gravel away. This afternooon John and David shoveled what gravel they could back into the wheelbarrow and carted load after load back up the hill to repair our track.

It's been hard keeping up with drying wash: all the available covered areas are now festooned with slowly drying items. In fact there was a load hanging out on the hills hoist for four days, getting 'special extra rinses', until I gave up and brought the dripping lot onto the verandah. Oh well! At least it's clean!

Eye of the storm

Guess where we live :-)) Yup, just about right *there* ...
Rain and hail pelting down sideways, thunder and lightning... the lot.

House is holding up extremely well (for all it's an antique). Bits of trees flying past though ... Horses are OK, they're hiding among the rainforest trees on the western side, and in the sheds. Dog is unconcerned, asleep on the rug. Yarrow's worried about the cats though I assure her they're sensible enough to find safety.

Australian weather

Here's the weather report for you (from the radio, no picture, only sound):

Macquarie news weather report

I love radio... :-D

Have a lovely day!

Rain = Mud = mucky horses

This horse is usually a nice pearly white colour with slight peach tones underneath. Really, really truly.
All I can say now is "Well at least she washed her face before tucking into dinner"    :-D

Rainbow region

The advantage of all that rain we've been having is that one occasionally gets some great rainbows playing onto the farm.

Here are two rainbows that came visiting us this week.



Quite nice!!

Pre- and post-puddle

It's been raining rather a lot. Here are some photos of our young brumby/arab x horse Rascal Darius ('THFKAR') before, and after, a very satisfying encounter with a puddle.

We might re-name him "Crusty" ...


:-D

PS it was *very* hard to take the photo because he's so curious and affectionate he tends to put his nose right on the camera when photos are being taken.

The floodwaters are receding

We took some time out on Thursday afternoon to go play with (what we thought were) the receding floodwaters. This is a normally small creek / rivulet running under Boatharbour Road, where Tess, Yarrow and Briony's school bus normally goes. Good fun for playing in.

But then the water actually rose again Thursday night as I was bringing Yarrow to and from music lessons, and I was very worried that we would be cut off from home as the Wilsons River broke its banks. The water came as high as the door sill on the car on Eltham Rd. Luckily the Forester made it though the water, though not without some palpitations on my side! If it had been an inch higher I would not have dared cross. (I've been swept off a road by floodwaters before, and it's very scary!). By midnight the same stretch would have been under more than a metre of water...

By the Friday the little creek crossing shown on the photo was absolutely impassable and the school bus had to turn back.

Wilsons River peaked at about 8 metres above its normal height. Today's screen capture from the Bureau of Meterology river heights data website shows the amazingly rapid rise in river height.

Oops, it was a big storm after all...

The coastal village not far from here (Lennox Head) was hit by a mini tornado this morning - quite impressive!

If you click on the photo it takes you to the Sydney Morning Herald site with a good series of five photos showing the progression of the tornado.

It's raining ...

... and the river is rising just a teeeeeeny bit, and the school bus has been cancelled, and I think I might just keep the girls home from school ...

Birthday weekend

And what a lovely weekend it was!!!

It being my birthday, we *were* going to go camping at one of our favourite remote spots, Alice Flats on the Clarence River. But inclement weather suggested that would not be a good idea. So at the last moment we changed our plans (flexibility :-) ) and instead on the Friday visited our local historic inn, the Eltham Friendly Inn. On the Saturday we had a party, barbecue and bonfire at the Grange with friends and family, and had a wonderful time.

On Sunday - after sleeping in and having tea and crumpets in bed (aren't I *spoilt*?) we fetched our latest impulse purchase from a local garage sale (OK: we agreed to buy it "if it goes". Yes, it goes! .. a bit smokey, but nontheless sweeet... But stopping, now, that's another thing entirely! Anyone know a good VW brake specialist?). John and Yarrow brought it home with me following in the Forester (in case it needed a tow, but no, it does indeed go). The stopping technique involved a fair bit of handbraking and careful consideration of road slope. Some of the electrics don't work (windscreen wipers and indicators ... maybe though we just haven't found the correct button). The photos show the VW coming sturdily down the drive, and a small gaggle of girls (Tess, Bonnie and Yarrow) ooh-ing and aah-ing over it once parked in the side shed. Cute...

Happy Birthday Briony!!

It's Briony's birthday today and she's a wild and wonderful 16 years old!!!

Here's your birthday 'card', love! This photo was taken at 6 a.m. on a December morning (last week) ... already warm, and temperatures expected to reach 43 degrees in Lismore, but cooler here nearer the coast, high on the ridge where we can catch the breeze.

This is the view from the back step looking ENE (East-Northeast). Ethereal, hey...

Have a happy day Briony! I'm sure you will, seeing as your sisters have just wrapped you in cling wrap and ribbons and are graffiti-ing your back ... :-)

Small pothole on Oliver Avenue

Yes, well, sometimes it rains, and sometimes it pours ... Today I need to bring Tess to the dentist on Oliver Avenue (it only took the dental health scheme people a tardy two years to call her in for her appointment so I'd better make use of the opportunity). I don't know, though, can the Subaru negotiate the pothole left by the flooding on Oliver Avenue? Maybe I should take the climbing gear? A ladder?

I would say that the Council road engineers would be scratching their heads rather ruefully. Not to mention the two guys waiting for the bus there...

Nope ...

.... Let's just give it a miss, hey? Yeah ..... No school today .... C'mon, let's go home ...
(click on the photo for a bigger picture)

Flood in Northern Rivers

The Wilson River has risen 10 metres in 24 hours ... and then the paddocks get a bit soggy (see above).
The towns of Lismore and Grafton are being evacuated, and more than 20,000 homes are without power. Not us here at 308, though... we're here on our eyrie farm high above the valley and luckily the power stayed on despite the numerous trees that fell due to the high winds.

River height after the rain

After one night of heavy rain ... very heavy rain ... the Wilsons River has risen from it's customary 1 or 2 metres deep to nearly 8 metres deep (not unusual here, really). Hmmm. If it goes over 8 metres it'll flood the bridge ... I'll have to go the long way round ... Hmm. Better leave work now and head home ...