After days and days of tantalising & frustrating rain clouds just passing us by in the distance, it's all coming down in biblical quantities today! Last night we were surrounded by gunmetal grey towering storm fronts, lightning and thunder, with one rainstorm hitting us for about an hour - and just moments before I went out to bring the dogs inside, Honey freaked out at the thunder and ran off!
We thought she was just hiding and looked everywhere, but after half an hour she hadn't turned up, so Gary stayed at the camp and I took the car to go looking in the dark around the bush camp. I found some tracks heading towards town! No way, I thought, but I just had a bad feeling so I kept going. Checked at Main Street - she wasn't there. Checked Hazel's old house - nothing. Drove past the aged care hostel - Honey came racing out barking in her "Hey! Hey! It's me!" bark. Jesus! That's a five kilometre trek along the Goldfields Highway and then down the Great Northern Highway, down Main Street, then along the creek and over the bridge. And in a big noisy storm!! I was BESIDE myself. She'd obviously panicked and just started running, then went to the hostel out of habit.
Anyway we were both very glad to see each other and I locked her in the main shed with Smokey for the night. Today was unbelievably hot and humid, then it all burst and came pounding down just as Gary came home from work. I had to wrap Honey in a towel and put her under my chair, she was so terrified by the noise. Vincent and Bandit, meanwhile, were out playing in it, rolling in the mud. Smokey just went to bed. "Uh huh. Wake me up when it's civilised out there."
Gaz and I put on our wellies and storm coats and went to inspect our surroundings as the flooding started. So far so good - we have a creek running along the south side of the camp now, but Gary's dirt wall is keeping it out of the compound. Our southeast track has disappeared into a lake, and we have several mini-rivers running across the open part of the compound where we park the vehicles. We can't find too many drips coming into the sheds which is good but we keep going round with the torches to check. The puppies are now wet, cold and tired, so I dried them off and stuffed them in a laundry basket to sleep! Their area out front is under an inch of water so I'm going to have to bring them inside.
It's pouring down so hard we can't hear the TV or each other - I think we'll find tomorrow that the town's cut off, so I might see if I can go get some extra supplies at the shop before the shelves get emptied. Gary will have to drive me in in the 4WD, we'll be travelling across creeks to get in and out!!
Must go, need to find where I stored the inflatable boat.
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