Raindrops keep falling on my head...

Surprsingly, I'm feeling pretty lucky right now!! (Tired - but lucky!!) This has certainly been a long weekend!!

Friday arvo I started my usual trek up the freeway to feed the horses, only to remeber that it was a long weekend (its easy to forget these things when you only work three days - hee hee!!).

So after crawling along at 2kms an hour for the first bit of the freeway I decided to take the not quite so secret other passage and head up the Pacific Highway. The further I got the darker and stormier it became, eventually encouraging me enough to get off the windy back roads and head back onto the freeway. So i went back to the crawling traffic. Turns out that was a really good move, since this is what happened to the highway a little further along the way....

Crazy - huh?!?!?!?

Anyway - unknowing of such drama that was unfolding I kept on crawling up the freeway - watching it get darker and dreading more and more having to feed the horses in the dark and the rain!! Oh the joys of horses in winter!!

Finally I reached the turn off and started to head down Ourimbah Creek Road, as I started down the road a car came in the opposite direction, slowed down and told me the road was covered in water and you couldn't get through. Having already driven through a couple of pretty heavey patches of water I wasn't deterred - I had to get down to the ponies after all... So kept on going!!

A bit further down there was a couple of fire trucks that had just finished patching up a section of road, the firies informed me they hadn't been any further down the road but to give it a go... Yay!!

So I kept on going, but even I was out of my depth.... the poor little Corolla looked at the lake ahead and said "NO WAY", after watching a boy go wading into it and ending up in it up to his waist I begrudgingly turned around and admitted defeat for the night!!

I started heading home, met up with Renee and the reports started rolling in - the worst we heard of was a nearby property being 4 metres under water. I started fraeking out - we didn't know what state the horses would be in or how deep in water their paddocks would be. I continued home to shut the dogs in and pack up the car and headed back up the freeway. I landed myself at my Uncle's house (10 minutes from the horses) and tried to get some sleep, knowing that first thing in the morning we would have to try and get out there.

With no electricity up the coast - the one shop that did was doing booming business with takeaway coffee the next morning and I grabbed a few before heading back to Ourimbah Creek Road, where I met up with Renee and Ben in their 4wd... we started down the road to have a look.

Now I don't have any pics of what we saw, but here are some pics of nearby areas that are as close to what we saw as I can find...

Looking out at where I am used to seeing paddocks and horses - there was nothing but water. It was one of the strangest things I've ever seen. There was no way of getting through - and with heavey hearts we turned around. Thankfully we bumped into as SES dude, who brought some well awaited news - they had been down the road the day before and opened the gates on any animals they thought were in danger. Our only real hope was that they had let our horses out. For the next 24 hours we hung on to this tiny piece of information, and made a couple more trips out to see if the water had come down. After finally realising we were never going to get out there that day I finally headed home to try and find some sleep. After all... it wasn't like we could go and get any dinner up the coast....

I left home at 5.45 am the next morning (after minimal sleep), I was determined to be at the top of the road at first light to try again. And to my relief, and the Corolla's trepidation, we made it through one big puddle and a muddy landslide before I finally had to leave my trusty car behind. A tree had brought power lines down across the road, but having got this far I couldn't turn back (besides, I wasn't sure the Corolla would make it through the mudslide again!!) so I climbed over the tree and walked the last of the way.

I could never have believed the damage at the farm, pretty much all of the paddocks would have been under water to some extent - some of them would have been completely immersed. To my greatest happiness I counted all the horses, and although they were all cold and hungry they were ok!! One of Renees horses, Clover (see blog below "Love is in the air...") has cut her legs up pretty bad, but all things considered it is amazing that they all survived.

As I said at the start - despite it all - I feel lucky - have never been happier to see those crazy ponies!! Big hugs to them all!!