Our plan was to drive back on 24 March. We decided to stick to that despite knowing that:
- Mallacoota had scored (according to the BoM) 107mm of rain;
- The power was out (but due back at 1100 hrs); and
- Lakeside Drive was closed due to fallen trees.
In Canberra the sun had come out, mixing with a final shower from the Brindabellas.
I thought it would be interesting to take photos of the rivers we passed/crossed on the trip, to record how high they were. We didn't bother with the Molonglo as it was just brown and within its banks at Dairy Road. The first major stream was the Bredbo River. The safety barriers were a view-obstructing pain in the Jetta but the way the poplars are poking out of the water shows that it was well above normal.
The Numeralla River was similar. I can remember seeing this much wider - on this trip the secondary channel was still dry.
As we turned on to the Snowy Mountains Highway at Cooma a couple of buses passed in front of us and I expected to catch and pass them in the next few kms. Not so, they moved right along. When we got a long view there were a couple of other buses in front of them and they stayed in position through Nimmitabel and - with Brown Mountain being closed due to flooding (or landslides, the cause kept changing) they turned on to the Bombala Rd. Approaching Ando, Frances was able to get a shot of the row of vehicles.
The next river was our first look at the Bombala River just to the North of Bibbenluke (about 12 road kilometres out of Bombala town). We can normally see just a thin strip of water here.
To my great surprise the official detour took the buses off here along Black Lake Rd to Cathcart. We have been up there a few times and its a narrow windy dirt road. I would have thought the buses might find it 'interesting' (and approaching traffic might find them 'difficult'). However it cut about 30 kms off the trip to Cathcart and the narrow, hilly and winding delights of the Mount Darragh Rd.
On the edge of Bombala the extra water in the river was clearly visible,
Somewhere about here we became aware that the power was not going to come back to Mallacoota until 1500 hrs, so we had plenty of time. As we had not taken our morning walk we decided to go for a stroll along the river. At first glance we wondered in the platypuses had adopted a beaver lifestyle.
However closer inspection showed that a pedestrian bridge was very used. Not even Arthur Daley (or Scotty from Marketing) would be able to advertise that as "only one careful owner".
The seat in this image had wisps of reeds on top of it, and a heap of damp flotsam is just visible to the right of it. My guess is the water was about 2m higher on Tuesday!
Enough with the guesses already. The BoM has a gauge in Bombala and that shows that when we were there (red arrow) the river height was about 3.1m while at its peak (green arrow, roughly 10 hours earlier) it was about 5.2m. My guess wasn't bad.
We had been debating whether to go along Imlay Rd or down to Cann River. The Imlay is a more peaceful, and shorter, drive but at some risk of fallen trees (and crud washed on to the road). So we passed it and stopped to look down into the Genoa River as it passed under the Highway. It's sort of visible here.
While so paused we noted 3 caravans turn into Imlay Rd. Now that be a surprise for anyone coming from the Eden end (any any log trucks working on a rather boggy day). Further down the road a river was running in spate beside the road. Consulting Google Maps, this is still the Genoa, which runs beside the highway almost to the State border.
It is going to be a day of two before the Inlet stops getting inflow. Just over the border we crossed the picturesque Winnot Creek.
About this point Frances reminded me of my wish to revisit the Beehive Falls when it had been raining; what about now? The Jetta is her car and I she felt OK with the idea I was game. Apart from getting a stick stuck under the car as we stopped it was fine. And the Falls both picturesque and showed the Beehive shape!
The downstream view.
As we got back to the highway I took this photo looking up the East Branch of the Cann River from a low level crossing. I suspect it wouldn't have been crossable (without much medication, or alcohol) the previous day.
About this point we got an alert that power wouldn't be back until 1900 hrs so we did the Cann River Rainforest walk which was very pleasant. Here is the mighty Cann: a good flow but not flooding.
Our final stop was at Genoa to (succesfully) look for an Emu. It was on the far side of this lagoon which is usually cow pasture.
Somewhere about here we became aware that the power was not going to come back to Mallacoota until 1500 hrs, so we had plenty of time. As we had not taken our morning walk we decided to go for a stroll along the river. At first glance we wondered in the platypuses had adopted a beaver lifestyle.
However closer inspection showed that a pedestrian bridge was very used. Not even Arthur Daley (or Scotty from Marketing) would be able to advertise that as "only one careful owner".
The seat in this image had wisps of reeds on top of it, and a heap of damp flotsam is just visible to the right of it. My guess is the water was about 2m higher on Tuesday!
Enough with the guesses already. The BoM has a gauge in Bombala and that shows that when we were there (red arrow) the river height was about 3.1m while at its peak (green arrow, roughly 10 hours earlier) it was about 5.2m. My guess wasn't bad.
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