Then and Now (or 90 Feet of Water).

When I posted this image from 2008 (as my piccie of the day) I did not mean to cause confusion.

Eastern Oz is not in drought at the moment.

Back in November, I posted these images of Gough’s Bay on Lake Eildon, Victoria to show what it was like in 2009

And what it was like2011.

That is the thing about Oz, as a rule our environment lurches from extremes of drought to literally flooding rain. We will have years of drought followed by floods and then back again with often only short periods of “normal” rainfall in between

For city folk life tends to go on in either case. The people who live in the bush adjust to the changes as they come. They have seen it before they will see it again. In my lifetime I have seen numerous cycles like this.
As to our wildlife, everything seems to cope. Birds and land animals breed like crazy in the good years. Even fish survive. In many cases rivers that have stopped flowing will be full of fish days or weeks after they flow again. How is a bit of a mystery to our scientists, but happen it does.

To finish, the best example I can show of  just how different things are now is of a place from not far from here.
This image (not one of mine) is of the Bonnie Doon road bridge over an arm of lake Eildon as it was in 2009, still at the height of the drought.

Credit

  This is what it is like now

 Eildon is around 30 metres (over 90 feet) deeper. The change took less than 12 months.

The Lake that Came Home

Almost exactly 18 months ago I posted about one of my weekend trips.

I was talking about the impact of more than a decade of drought on Lake Eildon in the Central Highlands of Victoria.

Well if there is one thing certain about the Aussie climate it is that a period of drought will end in periods of flooding rain.

I went back to Eildon yesterday and the contrast couldn’t be greater.

Gough’s bay in 2010Almost the same angle in 2011The southern shore in 2010And in 2011.And a close up to emphasize the difference.
The lake is over 25 metres (82 feet) deeper!

Wet Wet Wet

It seems that our wet and flooding summer has turned into a wet and flooding autumn.

Much of Oz was cursed by floods through the summer as we ended a long period of drought. The wet continues.

Yesterday we had our wettest April day in 35 years. Yet strangely even with all this water around, Melbourne still arguably has a water shortage.

Oz has a climate that typically swings from periods of wet to periods of dry. A few pictures to illustrate.

About 18 months ago we had a picnic at one of Melbourne’s medium sized water storages Sugarloaf Reservoir and I snapped these piccies.

As you can see the water was low.In fact because of over a decade of drought the reservoir (and Melbourne’s overall water supply) was down to under 30% of capacity. Had rainfall continued at that rate we would have run out of water in another two years. This former island went back to being a hill.Regional Oz towns have run out of water in the past, in fact one of the towns we lived in some years ago got so low (below 5% capacity) that they actually went to water rationing, even basics like bathing were limited. Not fun.

Melbourne like most of Oz has huge storage capacity because of this kind of risk.

Things are a bit different now. With all the wet Sugarloaf has changed, these piccies taken a couple of weeks ago show how much water has flowed in with our flood weather.The island is an island again.Melbourne Water has taken advantage of flooding in the Yarra Valley and pumped water to Sugarloaf reservoir which is now at 87% capacity.Yet despite this Melbourne’s water supply is still only at 53% capacity.

So poor sun loving Al has to say bring on the rain :-(

Swan Watch XII: Another Wet Weekend

The wet weather continues down this way. In fact it has poured on and off all weekend. Not to be deterred Deb and I went for drives on both days. Although I have to say with all the rain and mud there was no hiking this weekend.

On Saturday we headed up the Yarra valley. I had to pause near Yarra Glen to catch these piccies as the storm clouds swallowed up the distant mountains.Today we headed out again this time down to Port Phillip Bay.For a brief moment we had a glimpse of blue sky. But the muddy colour of the water is a direct result of all the runoff flowing into the bay with the continued rain.We attempted to go for a short walk but just a little way down the coast the sky got so dark again we beat a hasty retreat back in the direction of the car.
I was amazed by just how black the sea was below the clouds.

No wonder with all this rain local rivers like the Plenty River are threatening to break their banks.Now to the Swans.
On our way home we paused briefly to catch a couple of photos. And I mean a couple, it was raining again and my camera is simply not waterproof. When I have a spare $2500 I’ll buy a new one :-)
As you can see from these hastily snapped shots Mother and baby are still well.

Baby is starting to look a bit more handsome again as its scrappy down is covered by a fresh coat of feathers. He/She won’t get that glossy adult black until after a couple more moults.

Now a final word about Veiled in Shadows, thank you all for your kind words. Also thank you for those of you who have offered to review it for me.

For those of you who missed Friday’s post my book is available on Amazon and you can read an extract here .

I am thinking of posting additional extracts over coming weeks, what do you think?

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.

And Now for the Weather

No I haven’t fallen off the edge of the world.
It seems an age since I last posted.
Yet now I check it is only five days.

We had a long weekend here in Victoria: Monday was “Labour Day.”
Pretty much every state in Oz celebrates the holiday but they all hold it at different times of the year.

I have had a busy weekend, my brother Mike and his wife Caro came down to visit from their farm in Northern NSW.
On Sunday we went for a drive down to the Mornington Peninsula. Surprise, surprise I took some piccies down there, I hope to post some of them later in the week.

Now for the weather.

As is traditional we seem to be swinging from a drought cycle to a flood phase.
For hundreds of years droughts in Oz have ended with flooding rains.
This year seems to be no exception.

Up north Queensland seems to be half under water.
While we in Melbourne have had to contend with local flooding and hail.

To put it mildly it has been bucketing down.

In between showers yesterday evening I went out briefly to have a look around.
As when I go almost anywhere my camera went with me.

I stopped to snap these two shots of an impressive skyscape. As you can probably see from the clouds it was blowing a gale.

These benches are in a local park.
As you can also see it is a bit wet.

Then another piccie of the rapidly changing sky (where the cloud was fast eating the blue) before scurrying home to get out of the rain.
If you are interested the ABC (that would be Australian Broadcasting Corporation) has a site with a lot of topical piccies. Topical for Oz that is, at the moment they are featuring a lot of flood piccies from QLD and Victoria