More bad weather baking …

At first it was just a session of Bad Weather Baking, I’ve done it before, and it’s designed to take my mind off the sound of torrential rain and the damage it does to the garden.  This time, I made a couple of jars of candied cumquats and an experimental jar of pomegranate syrup.

Candied Cumquats & Pomegranate Syrup
Candied Cumquats & Pomegranate Syrup

As I “baked” the storm raged and the rain pelted down, but I hardly noticed, so engrossed I was in the process. The idea of the Pomegranate Syrup was to use it later in some sort of dessert, but later in the evening when I realised that the rain hadn’t stopped, and that a flood was imminent, I turned to my second favourite thing to do in a storm – make exotic cocktails !

Champagne Pomegranate & Mint Cocktail
Champagne Pomegranate & Mint Cocktail

The rain continued unabated, sometime during the night our bridge went under, cutting the town in half, and spectacular waterfalls closed the Dorrigo Mountain Road.

Thankfully, although the river broke its banks, it stopped short of flooding the shops in the historic Old Butter Factory where tenants spent most of yesterday preparing for a flood.  As usual, we headlined the television news, but it does appear that this time, no serious damage was done.  Today, the sun is peeping through the clouds and the clean up starts …

Going under again ….

It’s going to be a BIG ONE, and this time the Bureau of Meteorology got it right …

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Town was busy this morning as everyone stocked up on essentials.  At the post office a worried man came rushing in to see if his two Queen Bees had arrived.  Luckily they had, although I doubt that there will be much hive-building going on this weekend.  Now the bridge is closed and under water and town is all but deserted.

The big wet tropical low which had been lurking off the coast moved on-shore at around 9:00 am today and it’s been pelting down non-stop ever since.  The ground is already saturated, the water has nowhere to go and the forecast is for 300 mm plus ….  this looks like being a repeat of the major flood event of 2009.  So far, the new drains under my house are doing their job and I should avoid any more structural damage, although I expect to see fallen trees if the big gusts of wind continue.

It looks like being a long, wet and slightly stressful weekend …

 

Bellingen under water …

It started raining early last week, which was nice because we’d had a few hot days and the garden needed a light watering.  Then it rained on and off for five days, which was also nice because it meant we had a bit of reserve for the next hot spell.  Then it started to rain seriously on Sunday and it has hardly stopped since …. so today the bridge went under for the first time this year.  If it keeps raining up on the Dorrigo Plateau as predicted, we may yet be completely cut off, but for now we can still get out.

The garden is like a rice paddy but otherwise everything is OK so far.
You can follow this link to see the report in our local newspaper …
Bellingen river floods