Wednesday, Feb 01, 2006 at 19:47
Hi Kevin,
Up to 820 mm here now. I thought Emma got about 400 to 450, never did hear the figure of 750 mm, in fact in 20 years I have never heard of anywhere up here getting that in one day. Guess it is possible.
Road closed for between 3 to 5 months, more often 4 or 5 than 3.
Have seen one or two tiny wets when it may have been possible to drive to town on and off during the wet season, trouble is you can cross a river in the morning no problem then see no rain but that afternoon the crossing is 20 ft deep because it rained upstream and has now got down to the crossing. All in all it's just to much of a risk to drive anywhere even if the road wasn't legally closed.
Sometimes one person here but normally two. To risky with one, if they get hurt and can't get to phone they are in real trouble.
Shops 360 km to
Kununurra, don’t miss them at all.
In late Oct or early Nov we get a truck with heaps of dry goods to last the whole wet season. Flour, sugar, tined and dry etc. Also get some sacks of heavy veggies like spuds onions & pumpkin that will last in the cool room for ages, when they run out or go off we have to fly more in. I am still using spuds and onions I got about mid Nov, having to pick and chose a bit now they have nearly had it ! To keep the cost of the air freight down I always buy enough just before the wet to last me till about when I reckon they will go off.
We also get a mail plane twice a week and once a week order fresh fruit and veggies on it. Sometimes it can’t come due to weather, low cloud etc.
As to what do we do, there isn't enough hours in each day !
The gardens here are huge and they have to have a major chop back pref by Jan so they have time to shoot fresh and look good by the time we open. The grass grows while you watch it and we are forever mowing. I have been in the garden all day again today, am behind it's beating me, am doing a major on it this time and digging up & getting rid some of the stuff that has gone mad and taken over whole areas.
Have hobbies like reading, taking and printing my own photos and making jewellery. I like genealogy and have been trying to do a family tree for 3 years, frustrating I have a brick wall with two different lines Taylor and Riley in NSW around 1850. Found stacks of convicts and two different lines of children born in NSW 1798 & 1799. Was pretty pleased about that. I just never seem to get enough time to do as much as I would like with any of it. Got a lovely photo of a storm at sunset last week, ( just lucky , right time right place) I think it is one of the best I have so far.
Of course the phone still goes and bookings still come in & bills still need paying so there is a certain amount of office work still to be done as
well.
John does heaps as
well, things like slashing the whole
airstrip 1.3 km X 90 meters wide so the plane can land and doing mechanical repairs and re builds and he has almost finished building all metal shelves and cupboards in a room so he can set up his reloading gear etc. The 3 dogs have to be fed and he also takes care of getting a donkey or an old bull for them. He also likes to read when he gets time.
Except for the lack of income ( cattle or tourism) I would be happy for the wet to last twice as long, just love it here at this time of the year.
So green and so pretty. All so easy to live here now with good
water supply, good power, phones, internet and twice a week plane, when we came there was not even any phones and we have only had TV for 2 or so years. Mind you the rubbish that is on there I can easy see how we didn’t miss it all those years.
We used to pump water from the river, big pump up on a trailer and a couple of times went down to find it trailer and all underwater, now it’s a
bore on the power system, throw a switch on or off. Once the old pump trailer was in so deep that
John had to swim out, dive under and attach a big rope so we could pull it out.
Used to have to hand crank the old Lister generator, I had trouble reaching the decompression leavers and I always seemed to bash my shin getting the crank off, now it’s push a button !
All in all we are really spoilt now and have it easy compared to 20 years back. Do love the net so fast and easy to have contact with friends.
Wow, I talk to much I intended to be back in garden an hour ago !
Hope this fills in the gaps for you.
cheers, Anne
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