Wet, Wet, Wet.

First up some house keeping -

Welcome to any who have found their way here through Karen G’s Labor Day BBQ Blog-o-rama.

Second: My Sunday Swan watch will have to be temporarily suspended. It isn’t through a lack of trying, but our Swan family are not at the moment to be found.
Don’t panic, I doubt anything untoward has happened to them. Rather as I’ll point out below the weather down this way has been very suitable for swans, ducks and the like. This has meant the nearby area available for our swans has gone from probably 20 acres of wetlands to hundreds of acres. This is due to higher water levels allowing them easy access to other channels and ponds. I have hunted for them on a number of occasions as has my daughter Io, but with no results.

Finally: Thank you to all who expressed concern for Deb after her fall. She is almost entirely better with all aches and pains pretty much gone.

Now on to my post for tonight…

Poor Victoria has been lashed by torrential rains over the past twenty-four hours.

On top of an already wet winter this has meant significant flooding in the north of the state.
Again – don’t panic, down in the south - central where we are, the rainfall has been much lower with only nuisance localised flooding.

As is usual Deb and I were out and about. We headed in the direction of one of our favourite haunts, the Upper Yarra Valley.

Well the Yarra River has burst its banks.
Back in February I posted this piccie of the river.Today from the same point the scene is a bit different.I didn’t post this picture, but it shows Deb’s brother-in-law David and our niece Kennedy on the same day.They are sitting at a picnic bench in a park near the river.

I don’t think we’d use the bench today.But for many local residents life goes on as normal.

The Happy Wanderer is showing its first flush of spring flowers.This big gum tree will be happy at a good drink after so many years of drought.And these Sulphur Crested Cockatoos weren’t bothered by the rain, but they only put up with me getting so close before flying off.On our way home we paused so I could capture some shots of people driving on moderately flooded roads.

Some being sensible, took it slowly.While others raced through the water (today we saw one person flood their motor this way).

I guess this farmer won’t be getting machinery on his field any time soon.One last shot of more flooded paddocks I took on the way home. As you can see from the clouds it looks like we are in for more rain.