The ark

It is a little bit hard to accurately describe our weather over the last 24 hours. Perhaps I should start by saying we had 750 mm of rain (yep that's 30 inches) in NINE HOURS. The best way to describe it is that it was as though someone tipped a lake out of the sky.

I was trying to drive to Pete's place when the worst of the storm hit. I got trapped on the forest road with flood water in front of me and behind me, the road like a river, branches coming down all aroundme and no way to move. It was very, very frightening. I eventually got Fred Beast up onto some high ground and just had to sit it out for a while. I managed to get to Pete's place and then was stranded there for the night (which was a good thing - as Pete's carers couldn't get out to him and he would have been stuck alone at home with no way of getting out of his chair and into bed - much less getting any food).

So today it is still raining and the flood damage is unbelievable. The Bellinger got up to almost 9 metres last night and is still over 8 metres now. There are houses under water, the roads are cut all around and things are still pretty grim.

I drove back home this morning - through flood waters, over fallen trees and around landslips. The scene is devestating! There were 800 children stuck at Bishop Druitt school overnight, almost every shop in Coffs Harbour has sustained flood damage, there are cars still under water with just their roofs showing, there are abandoned cars everwhere and its just a bloody mess!!

I drove down to Repton - can't get into Mylestrom as the river is still over the road. Three weeks ago I photographed a farmer saving his cows in the last flood. This morning I watched him trying to get through the water in his tractor to pull out their bodies - they weren't so lucky this time. I didn't take any photos of this - too distressing.

So here are some of the photos I took this morning - I didn't take any yesterday, I was too busy being scared.

The first photos is of the paddock where the farmer lost the cows.

This picture is looking across at the Bellinger River - it's rather wide at the moment!

This is the road coming up to my road. No chance of getting through on this one.
These poor cows don't have anywhere else to go. I hope the river doesn't rise any more.

This last photo is taken looking up the Bellinger Valley - this is usually all farmland.

As I write this, it is pouring with rain again. Wish I could send some down south.