Hello? Is there anybody out there?

Well, if you’ve been reading this blog for a while you might already have guessed why there has been no blogging activity of late…currently my home town of Kerang is cut off from the rest of the world by flood water.

We did evacuate from Kerang earlier this week to my family’s holiday house at Lake Charm (15 mins North of Kerang) to escape the water. Then Jem was called in from leave to work in the Disaster Relief Centre at the High School in Kerang. So the kids and I stayed at the lake without him, thinking it was safer.

Apparently it wasn’t. All the water is coming from 2 separate rivers which join up at the North end of Kerang and heading towards Swan Hill, which is now on high alert for a major flood. Lake Charm lies directly in between Kerang and Swan Hill. After talking with the SES and CFA, no one could give us an expected flood level- all they could say was ‘It’s going to be bigger than anything ever seen here’.

Then a family friend who was sent out this morning by our Shire to estimate the flood level, came by to warn us that it really didn’t look good for houses directly on the low side of Lake Charm.

So we evacuated again, this time back into Kerang. So now we are home again, completely isolated and waiting for the flood waters to subside.

While we were on the ‘outside’ I did manage to snap a few pics of rising flood waters and I’ll do my best to explain for you where they were taken.

This is a smaller levee bank about 200m past the twin bridges on the west side of Kerang, on the highway to Swan hill. The line of trees at the back of the photo is Kerang. The tractor in this pic was running a pump that was trying to empty this side of the levee back into the other side. As you can see, it was a losing battle. The next morning, all this was under water, including the road.

This is the road in to the picnic area on the south-east side of Reedy Lake (5 mins North of Kerang) The next morning there was no bridge and everything was half a meter under water.

Some sand bags that apparently couldn’t be used quick enough before the water came.

This was some hay on the Boort rd. on the west side of Kerang.

This was the North side of Reedy Lake yesterday. The outlet of the lake couldn’t be opened any more than it already was and the lake was about to burst its banks. So the farmers who lived right beside it took it upon themselves to make another outlet.

This is the Ibis rookery, on the south side of Reedy Lake.

Residents mailboxes who live on the ibis rookery road.

And this is the flood waters we drove through on the Murrabit rd. to the North of Kerang.

A poor farmer’s house, engulfed by flood water.

And this is coming back into the North end of Kerang, where they are building another levee on the actual road. This is to hold out the Pyramid Creek which is now coming from the east side.

 

All these machines belong to some very good family friends. They live out of town but decided to help the town by bringing their own equipment in to build the levee, also donating their countless hours of driving.

There are so many people helping out and doing their bit. Those who cant sand bag are feeding everyone else. The community spirit is really something to behold!

Ok I’m off to sandbag! I’ll show you some of our efforts tomorrow!

 

Phew

We’re back from a long long journey to the NSW coast, where we spent a week with Jem’s family and attended his Brother’s beach wedding.

It was such a whirlwind holiday and the drive up and back each took approx. 11 hours each. That’s 22 hours with a 3 yr old and 1 yr old in the car. Were they screaming, unbearable or irritating? Not at all!! They were so well behaved I couldn’t believe it! We sang, watched movies, played games and of course visited many a playground in order to keep ourselves sane.

So when I recover I’ll be back to share more and do a bit of blog reading too!

 

Kind People and a new Headband

Sometimes it amazes me how people can just sense someone in need of a little helping hand.
On Thursday a friend was walking past our house with her 8yr old daughter and on the spur of the moment decided to give me a few hours respite from Aus. She came and asked if he would like to come with them to have a ride on a tractor! Aus nearly wet himself, he was so excited! He came home with a huge grin and some Anzac biscuits- which he immediately hoed into!
I'm just so grateful to all the people offering to have Aus for the night or take him places. It takes his mind off missing Dad for a little while and he gets to have some fun instead of doing housework with Mum! (and Mum gets a rest too!)

This week has been a bit more stressful because Noah has 5 teeth cutting through at the same time. The poor little thing gets bright red cheeks and just feels rotten. So nights around here are basically me practicing getting in and out of bed, trying to soothe my poor baby. Hopefully it will all settle down for a while once these teeth are up :)
But, even though he's teething, Noah is talking! So far we have 'Mum, Bub, Nan, Dad, Dog and ta ta!'. He points at each thing when he says it, and for 'ta ta' he waves. You can really see his mind working when he's learning something new and he's so quick at picking it up!

I guess I better go and do something constructive while Daddy's here to look after kiddies! But I'll leave you with pictures of the new headband I made using an old bit of crochet trimming.