When the Rain Tumbles Down in July

They played Slim Dusty's "When the Rain Tumbles Down in July" on the radio this morning and it was rather apt.

Everything is saturated and the Macquarie River has been running fairly high for a couple of weeks.

Chifley Dam, our local water storage was at a ten year low at the beginning of June at 61%. (We are very lucky with our water supply.)  By the end of June it was over the spillway.  Therefore, all the runoff since then has gone into the river.

We have been fortunate here, in that there has been a few days dry between the wet days, giving time for things to settle down.  But not so much this time.

It started raining at about 10 o'clock last night and rained steadily until about lunchtime today.  Set in, heavy rain.  You know that the ground is totally saturated when there are loads of worms on the concrete paths.  That's what it was like this morning.

When I came home at about 5 o'clock the river had risen considerably to just below the low level bridge. (Bathurst's secondary bridge, not the main bridge on the highway.) I was surprised at the number of tree trunks and branches washing down, but there hasn't been this much water in the river for a few years now.

This bridge is just down the road from where I lived as a kid and we were all avid river watchers, as our homes had the potential to flood.

Once, when I was in my early teens a few of us walked across the bridge in full flood, with water up to our thighs......then we walked back again.  You'd get shot if you did that now......mind you I think we would have got shot then if any of our parents had seen us.  Rather stupid when you look back....but we survived to tell the tale.

Mick and I went to the movies tonight to see "Hunt for the Wilderpeople" (great movie, by the way) and when we came home the road across the bridge had been closed.  The bridge wasn't under water as yet, but the road behind where I was standing to take these photos was just under.

I don't expect the river will break its banks and the weather has now cleared up, so things should be OK here.  More rain is predicted for Thursday, so lets hope things have subsided a bit before the next lot of water comes down.

Other towns in the region haven't been so lucky.  Canowindra has flooded and others are expecting minor and moderate flooding.