Summer floods

It’s often said that Australia is a place of extremes, and as if to live up to its reputation the country has delivered in spades.  ‘The Big Dry’ was the drought that started in 2001, reached a peak in ’07 and was declared ended in November last year.  It finished with unseasonal rains that filled the creeks, turned the farmlands green and brought life to the bush.  Even the great Lake Eyre had water in it again and birds in their millions arrived to take advantage of the bounty brought about by the rains.

During the Big Dry the Australians suffered their worst bush fires in living memory and on Black Saturday (7 Feb 2009) a series of bushfires raged across Victoria killing 173 and injuring a further 414.  The bankruptcy and suicide rate amongst the farming community continued to climb as the lack of water gradually leached the life from the agricultural world,  The great river Murray faltered and became a trickle, extreme water restrictions where enforced and the environment suffered as the artery of Victoria stuttered and almost failed.

We had become used to long dry winters where glorious blue skied days stretched across the months and my eye was constantly on the water tanks. The gardeners amongst us waited for summer in the hope that rains would dampen the earth and we could establish new plants that might survive the next arid winter. 

Then last year it changed.  Rains came early, not tropical downpours, but steady rains and the earth breathed again.  The rains defied habit and continued, the grass on the roadsides changed from gold to green, the dams filled, the gums bloomed. Lake Eyre filled a second time in the same year, unheard of in living memory, and the people planned trips to the Red Centre to see the fields of wild flowers decorating the normally broken land.

The downside of all this wet wonder was that the rains were raising the water tables, saturating the ground and filling the creeks and rivers, and so when the summer rains came there was carnage.  Fuelled by a strong La Nina and intensified by higher sea temperatures in the Western Pacific the summer rains came back with a vengeance.  Firstly in the north of Queensland and then steadily spreading south the rain was intense and demanding.  In normal times rain would sweep across the state in bands, each passing over within 15 minutes, but this year they dawdled.  The storm clouds crawled slowly across the hills taking an hour to pass instead of the quarter and releasing their bounty in breathtaking falls, in some cases exceeding 100mm per hour.

The water fell and finding no dry earth in which to seep or empty dams to fill it swept through the watercourses and out to the floodplains…which had been built on. It began with the smaller rural towns such as Emerald and Dalby, then to the larger inland city of Toowoomba and finally in a dramatic crescendo of roaring brown water through the city streets of Brisbane. 

The sheer size of Australia means that floodwaters take their time to get to places.  The original rains may have fallen on a ancient volcano in central Queensland but its days and sometimes weeks before they reach the towns and cities.  Communities have some time to build levees and sandbag walls before they are hit.  Sometimes the defences hold, sometimes tragically not.  People have been evacuated to safer ground, but there are always some who stay to save their property, a hopeless defiance of nature that often has ended in tragedy.

We live on a hill, some way south and far above the stinking mud and devastation wrought across the flood plains of the Brisbane River.  We were slightly inconvenienced by the route to the freeway being flooded and the odd short power outage, but an hour’s drive north of us people’s lives have been destroyed.  It has been remarkable, and uplifting, to witness the community spirit as volunteers in their thousands came out like an army of ants to restore the city.  Owners of houses that had been flooded were in tears both for their loss, but as much for the help offered by complete strangers. The mayor ‘Can Do’ Newman and the state premier Anna Bligh have rallied the masses, told the people that Queenslanders are bred tough and will be strengthened by the adversity.  Both have proven real leaders in a crisis, but I suspect both know that as the months of restoration turn into years there will be many who will never recover.  People have lost businesses, lost homes and all their belongings and many were not insured against floods.  The properties that survived will require costly repairs, but experts suggest will lose more than half their value as purchasers in the future check as to their vulnerability to the floods. 

To add to their misery the summer has just begun.  The cyclone season has hardly started and so there are more rains to come.  This is the season for flash floods and tropical rains, and they will be intensified by the much hoped for La Nina. There will be some tough times ahead.

On a much more personal level the waters have brought beauty to our gardens.  The trees are flourishing, the Ginger Garden beaming with flowers and the vegetable plots have become rampant with growth. The Wallabies seem to be all with Joey and the parrots are accompanied by newly fledged juveniles.  The frogs sing joyously each night and during the heat of the day their chorus is replaced by the sometimes deafening rattle of a million Cicadas. The gums are blooming providing a 24-hour pollen café, by day for Lorikeets and Honeyeaters, by night for the large Grey-headed Flying Fox (wingspan over 1m).

My efforts with mattock, hoe, brush-cutter and chainsaw are now paying dividends.  Susanne actually commented that the gardens were beginning to look “established”, a compliment indeed. Between the deck and the dam I have planted a grove of Grevilleas and Jasmine through which runs a path bridged by three rose arches on which climb the jasmine and a white climbing rose. The arches combine with the lush hedges to create a tunnel affect for those who like their gardens to have a spirit of the fey. 

The dams themselves have been planted with lilies and bordered with various flowers and fruiting natives that provide shade for the ducks and feeding stations for the Fairy Wrens and Honeyeaters. The dams are stocked with native fish including Yellow Bellies, Australian Bass, Silver Bream and Rainbow Minnows.  Their presence is signalled by ripples and swirls and on a warm day you can sometimes find Schnappy the turtle sunbathing on the wooden steps. Less visible but available on a line with some meat bait are the Yabbies, freshwater crayfish that live in the muddy floor.

Due to unsubstantiated claims of hen worrying from a distant neighbour we have fenced off the back garden and vegetable plots so that the dogs have a contained area to run free and this has provided the bonus of freedom from being harried (by dogs) to the Wallabies.  We are now seeing our bounding buddies coming right up to the deck as they graze on my strimmed native lawns. 

Our vegetable plots are a constant experiment.  I grow northern hemisphere staples such as Runner and French Beans, carrots, spring onions and peas alongside more tropical experiments including sweet potatoes, aubergine, capsicums and pau pau. The herb plot is great fun as I am having huge success with rainbow chillies, Thai basil, coriander and Thai coriander; joining the various thymes, parleys, marjoram’s and curry plants. 

Our Lemon tree, Lemonade bush, and Cumquats are full of fruit and the Olive tree and native Finger Limes showing encouraging buds. The native fruits I have planted include the Lilly Pilly, Hairy Pittosporum, Miracle Fruit, Bush Cherry, Native Raspberry, and Muttonwood. These are already proving popular with the birds and Olive Backed Orioles, Figbirds and Lewin’s Honeyeater have become regulars. 

There are still some years to go before the Sandpaper Figs, Long-Leaved Tuckaroo, Davidson’s Plum, Rosewood, Lemon-scented Tea Trees, Native Frangipanis, and Peanut Trees really kick off, but they are growing fast and full of leaf. The Passion Fruit vine is scrambling over the cut wall and I’m confident that by next year we’ll be enjoying its fruit over Susanne’s Pavlovas. 

None of this comes without effort and besides the planting I fight a constant war with the Blue Billy Goats weed, Dragon Trees and Creeping Oxalis, but each day that I drive them back is accompanied by a great sense of satisfaction.