What can I say? I forgot to write a Saturday blog, so now it’s a late blog. Sorry.
After weeks of unseasonal rain, the weather here in Hervey Bay has reverted to normal programming – cool to cold nights and calm, warm, sunny days. The rain was nothing like what was experienced around the Sydney area. I cannot imagine what it would be like to clean up from one flood, let alone the fourth flood in eighteen months. I suppose in that respect we’re lucky we don’t live next to a river.
That said, the ground around our house has absorbed as much water as it can. It’s still squelchy underfoot after about ten days of dry. The fruit trees are loving it. We have a bumper crop of oranges, mandarins, and limes. We share what we can with the neighbours, but anyone who has a fruit tree is in the same position as us. Pete has had to mow the grass despite the wetness of the ground – we would have needed a machete to get to the shed. But the ground was so soft the mower left ruts.
After having to do without for too many weeks, we were finally able to get hold of bags of salt for our swimming pool. The chlorination system breaks it down into chlorine to keep the pool water safe. This was a little-known impact from the flooding. Lots of swimming pools were caught up in the advancing flood water. Owners had to clean them out and set up the pool from scratch, which requires a LOT of salt, so there was a severe shortage. NOBODY in Hervey Bay had any salt for weeks. We got by using chlorine tablets.
The biggest impact on us from all the flooding was the rise in the price of fresh vegetables – because of the flooding and also because of the increase in the price of petrol. It’s over $2 a litre and that will go up even further in September when the Government’s pause on the petrol tax is removed.
Still, we can count ourselves lucky. Nobody is dropping bombs and missiles around our house and nobody is shooting up school kids with semi-automatic weapons.
Here are some pictures of a Hervey Bay winter.
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