Floods in Parts of Australia

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Its still raining albeit not heavy yet. Forecasts of 4/5 inches over the next couple of days. More for coastal areas and further North. Australia is no where near as badly affected as the Western US. Its sad when nature unleashes its fury like it has done. But then again, houses are let be built on land not suitable. Coastal Australia will come unstuck one day too with homes built on low lying land. Bushfires have already shown that houses are built too often in fire prone areas. Hopefully most of Australia will be safe from fires this Summer.
 
A tropical cyclone crossed the coast in far north Queensland early on Christmas day. It is now a tropical low dumping lots of rain up that way. Flooding over lots of Queensland and New South Wales. The flooding will last for weeks in the flat Western country. Its very slow moving outback. Most of it will run into either Lake Eyre in the top right hand corner of South Australia or into the Great Southern Ocean at the bottom of Australia. The western rivers are getting a very good flush out.
 
We came home over Tamborine Mountain yesterday afternoon. We came to flashing road closed signs, but cars came past us from the other direction. When we got there the water had dropped to below the road and had done so in several places on the way home.

Home and 44 mm in the gauge but we were not flooded. We are flooded this morning and they are still predicting more for today and the next 2 days.
 
AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH

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Not good, Suzi - lots of work coming up, cleaning everything up. Out of all the rain that there's been around Queensland,
some parts are still dry. Although our Longreach place looks great, only two dams have caught any water. Our northern country has dried off, this rain missed it entirely, and no dams have caught any water. The gullies havent run at all. Still plenty of dry country around and places that have missed out. Having said that, one place about 150kms from us, but still in our general district,
received 8 inches in one day just before Christmas! A very crazy year.....
 
I won't be surprised if we lose our lucerne. It is getting higher instead of lower.

That was our 5000 gallon water tank next to the house. BANG!!! It exploded. The circle is the base. You can see the sides and the rectangle is the top of the tank. It knocked all the bricks off the side of the house, but they were there for decoration, not keeping the house up. My brand new worm farm that I put next to the tank for protection had its legs knocked off. I have 1 and 3/4 legs left and have put them in and balanced it on the house. I tried to save as many worms as I could.

It chopped the jade bush off at the ground. That is a chinese money tree. LOL it doesn't seem to have been working bringing money in this year, so maybe we need a new one!!!

The water also came in the house in the lounge room and the office.
 
We have family trying to get home to the Central Highlands - not much chance of that today! Phenomenal amounts of rain still falling to the SE of here....hope we can get another splash off it soon! Mind you, there's still mould growing on everything here and its very damp. I picked mushrooms the size of bread and butter plates in the paddock this morning....they are very thick and meaty too....we often get mushies, but have never seen such huge thick ones before (and yes folks, I know what you're thinking!!!! they are mushrooms!!) Pity all the poor cattle shut up in fedlots on the downs
 
I picked a mushroom yesterday as well. It was fairly big too.

I just checked the forecast and nothing major forecast here for the next week.

Hubby went to Papas as the top of Tamborine Mountain and the drive was now 3 feet deep in one place. He spent the evening shovelling it off the road and back up. A neighbour did come over and offer him a wheel barrow as he was doing it using a bucket.

He hasn't finished he has to go back to finish it.

The water is going down here. It is also still there though. The fences are horrendous. I started on the boundary fence yesterday morning. The water had broken the wire and it was now running horizontal instead of vertical. The only problem was that it was in the dam.

I hooked it up to the back of the quad, but nope it just spun the wheels. So I started hauling it to the side of the dam and removing the debris off it as I did it, to try and lighten the load. Boy using my arms on the abtrak the last couple of weeks I am sure really helped a lot. The last bit I couldn't do. I kept wrapping it around a fence post as I couldn't walk anymore due to water on the groud, to shorten the wire to try and pull it in, but it was getting the better of me.

My neighbour must have heard my silent pleas for help. All I could hear in my head was hubby saying, when I told him all the fences were down, "Boy it sux to be you!"

With her help I managed to pull the last bit in and then dragging it back she hooked it up to her machine, which dwarfs my little quad and she pulled it all to the side for me. Which was great but it also left it in quite a knot as she pulled from the middle instead of the end. It also ravelled both wires together.

She had to leave to go to work, so I managed to unknot the knot. Then I straightened every post except 2 as the water was getting too deep for my gumboots. Then I hooked the wire up to my quad to try and pull it around to the fence. Which is over the deep bit of water.

Nope no good. Still around the water and weeds. I tried taking it on their property, nope no good. It broke and eventually spun the wheels.

Then I took a step where I shouldn't have and my gumboot filled with water. So I just kept going and filled the other one with water as well.

It was nearly to my hips and there is stuff on the ground, weeds with large roots, to try and trip you. The thought that there could be snakes or something else and that I physically still couldn't lift the wire and that the water was getting even deeper stopped me.

So I went over to our other fence as I really need to move the weaners down as I am running out of water up here. But the thought as I cleaned the debris off the wire, that the electric fence might be on and that as I cleaned I might get an 8000 volt shock with water in my gumboots, brought me to a stop as well.

So I came back up. I was burnt on my lower back where my shirt was a bit short with all the bending over, the v on my neck and my arms. I smelt like dam water, and it now hurts to handle wire as my hands are so sore, and I hadn't achieved anything.

So I had a shower, washed my hair and sat in front of the TV eating ice cream instead.

In the evening I went back down and I managed to get one wire cleared and up. It just takes so long. I will go back down this morning and put the other wire up. I have already straightened the posts and put the insulators on. All new insulators as the old ones have been sawn through. I will go and ask when I buy some new ones today, as they are supposed to have a 10 year warranty and we have only been here for 7 and we didn't put them up immediately.

I will then put the electricity on just down that fence and let the weaners out. At least then everyone can get to water.

I am hoping that as the fences are going the other way from there that they will be a bit easier to fix. I can see the debris on them from here. I will upload the last video for you of the water going down and you can see the debris on the fences. That is what takes the time, getting that off the wires.

I would love to get the electricity just going around the one paddock at least, but it might be a bit much to do that in one day with one person.

On the other hand my cattle have been sooooooooo good. I have put up orange tape on the fence that hubby hasn't finished yet. There is no electricity going through it, and as you know cattle don't take notice of one little bit of tape and no electricity. HA!!

Well the little angels have not gone past my, "Please do not go past this fence' fence. Even if they do now I am so happy with them, that I will not be saddened. Especially that today I should be able to get the electricity going around there......... I hope.

I will go and upload that last video now. It was taken a day after the other two, so you can see how quickly the water goes down. But of course that water that you can see is still fairly deep. It is deceptive.
 
That is how it will stay looking though for months and months, so that is what we normally see which is why I called it Receded. However the drain is still working as I stepped over it this morning, so it is narrow enough for me to step over but is also fairly deep, it would come up past your ankle easily and is running fairly fast. But what is going you can't see from the verandah.

This morning I went down and went around the whole paddock with the lagoon. There is still one fence to clean off and some posts to put back in right down the bottom. When I came up it was 11.30am so I am waiting for it to cool down now to go back down.

But I let the weaners out anyway. Yep they have gone straight through the one fence down and are now down at the creek, but with the creek full I am hoping they won't cross that!!!

I will bring them up when it is cooler and see if I can fix that fence and then hubbyy will help me on the weekend. He is going to Papa's again tonight.

There is a lot of water hyacinth caught on the fences. So I bet the new day will now be full of it. Good luck to the Council. They make us get rid of it, so now they will have to do the same. What a bet it will be off the list next year?
 
Same here Karen. I have not gone across the creek since the first flood. There just wouldn't be any point.

I have been fixing fences for day. Above the house of course didn't flood, so not worries there. I have one paddock now below the house. YAY. One paddock done, so many more to finish and if another flood is there any point?
 

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