Mission aborted!

With the Xmas holidays looming and lots of work to do at the farm, I had planned to head to the farm and try to finish the annex so I could move onto another project over the break.

There has been a huge amount of rainfall in the last week, so and I wasn't sure whether the road in would be blocked.  Most of the rivers nearby had broken their banks.

I arrived at about 1pm to find that the last river crossing to the farm blocked by flood waters.  I was so close to the property but couldn't pass.  I could see the front gate!

The bridge across the river is very narrow and I couldn't tell where the bridge was.  If I drove off the bridge, the car would have tipped over - not an ideal beginning for the weekend.  There is a bridge under all that water.  The water level was about 70cm deep.

My other option to try to drive into the back of the property by another road.  The problem is that I don't know the way and finding my way in muddy and slippery conditions wasn't ideal.  I had to cross another swollen river, which was about 60cm deep and had a good flow to it.

In the end, I gave up and headed back to the first flooded river to see if the water level had gone down.

The river level was still high and my only option was to leave the car behind and walk across the river.  The farm is about a 1km walk from the river.  It was a shame to come all this way and not see the farm.


After approximately 25mins of walking, I got to the farm and everything was fine.  I was a bit surprised to see how much rain we had in the last 2 weeks.  The rain gauge was overflowing and the top marking is 150mm.  I estimate that we got close to 200mm in 2 weeks - that's nearly half the rain we had for all of 2009!!!  

With the car stuck on the other side of the river, I couldn't bring over any supplies or stay around for very long. The only option was to head back home with my tail between my legs.

But my problems were not over yet.  About 25 km from Marulan, I noticed smoke coming from the engine bay of the car.  After a visit from the NRMA, my car was declare "kaput" and put on the back of a tow truck. 



It turned out that with all the 4-wheel driving I had damaged the rear seal on the engine.  An expensive thing to fix.

Anyway, not a good trip to the farm, but they can't all be diamonds!