Floods!

It's still raining, and we're back from our drive. There was an awful lot of flooding along the way. There is a town not too far away from us called Kaeo and it always floods. I really don't know how the poor people that live there cope with it. Some have built their houses up on stilts now, but I think this would be impossible in the main street. Anyway, we couldn't actually get into Kaeo as the road was totally flooded. We just got to the outskirts.

I think the people in this photo must  live in the house on the left - they appear to be completely flooded in. The only good thing is that the waters do subside very quickly, but sadly there's a lot more rain forecast.

This is normally a cow paddock

Kaeo - pretty much underwater , the far left of this picture - to the side of the 2 white buildings - is the main road into town. It curves round and behind. It's all water.

So far we still have power and it's certainly not cold. We're also fairly high up so the real flooding doesn't really affect us at all, there are three different routes we can take into town so if we can't get through one way we can always get through another way. The only issue for us really is one of the bridges north on the way to work for Lloyd. If it's flooded then he can't get to work.

My chicks seem fine, mum is doing a good job of keeping them warm. There are 5 doing really well and one very tiny sickly one that I fear won't survive long. Time will tell.

It's Raining.

I don't like rain much. I do, however love thunder storms and we have them forecast for later today - I hope they come.

Anyway, I'd finished cleaning the house and was just mooching around feeling 'over the rain' and sort of rainy Sunday afternoonishy, when I looked out of the kitchen window and this is what I saw...

Isn't it great! The ducks love the rain! They've been running around all morning quacking in delight and flapping their wings. I adore my ducks. They are hysterical. I had no idea having ducks around would make us so happy, it was lovely seeing them having such a great time.

Drought well and truly broken

remember this? from way back in the summertime. See how brown the sliver of grass is at the bottom of the photo?

Well, I took this today, same tree (a branch is missing from near the middle) but look how green the grass is now.

that's what a few days of solid rain'll do!

What's this wet stuff coming out of the sky, mum?

You can tell by Lulah's face that she's not impressed with the rain. I think the dogs have forgotten what it is!

( apologies for very poor quality pics, I was trying to sneak up on her!) 

This is boring, mum! let's go out and play.

130ml of rain today...a sign of things to come this winter...I certainly hope not!








The New Zealand Herald printed this one!!! ( thanks to Weatherwatch)

We made it!
Last night was absolutely horrible though. At about midnight the wind got up again, the eye had passed. All night we were buffeted by gales ( 175km/h) lucky Lloyd slept through it, my imagination didn't let me, I kept thinking of all the terrible things that could happen and had to keep looking out the window ( what I was expecting to see in the pitch dark I have no idea!) Eventually with daylight I looked out and everything seemed fine. At 7am the wind dropped and I fell asleep.

At 11 we went for a walk around and miraculously there has been no more damage, other than the tree from yesterday, we have one tree that has blown squint, and my sweetpea trellis - that's it! So, so lucky. Lloyd reckons it's because the weather has been so terrible up here and we've had some really high winds over the last year, everything that could blow down or was weak is already down.
All the animals are fine, the chickens have been given their freedom for the day and the donks are wet and muddy but happy to see us! In fact we're all a bit wet and muddy, have been for weeks now, so nothing new there!
Coos good too.

It's still raining, but I don't care! The wind has gone whooo hooo!

Better get ready for the next one - supposedly there's another one coming in by the end of the week. Maybe it'll blow off course!

Category 3 tropical cyclone!! wow.

video is about 10am this morning


.

about 2 hours later, a LOT more water!



never normally any water here!


We're right in the middle of it now. This morning 200km/h winds were recorded in the Bay of Islands.
It's all a bit hairy!
So far we've lost one huge pine tree, but it was due to come down anyway and it fell in such a way that no damage was caused. There are loads of branches down all over the place, but so far both houses are fine and all the animals are ok too. We've had to go out and stake a couple of our newer trees as they were looking dangerously like being blown over.

We had no electricity for about 5 hours so we went into Kerikeri to get some water as no power, no pump, no water even though it's torrential rain outside! The drive home was wet! Bulls Gorge is now closed, we were some of the last cars to get through. Our rivers are very high, the one nearest our house has completely burst it's banks but is nowhere near to reaching the house. The one down at mum and dad's is so high, but would never reach!

The Stone Store bridge is mad!
The wind is just getting up again so I assume the eye has past us, they're forecasting that this afternoon and night are going to be even more windy.

Nothing much to report!! Well spoke too soon there!
We have just had the worst weather ever - but it's been spectacular.
The rain has just gone off now but since last night up till about half an hour ago we had over 300mm of rain. Now that is the equivilent of 2 months rainfall in a day!

I went to kaikohe to post mums birthday present and it was just unbelievable how much flooding there was. The culverts were overflowing cos they couldn't cope so the water was just flowing, river like, into the roads. The roads were actually breaking up! There were huge holes appearing. The park as you come in to Kaikohe was completely underwater, it was just a huge lake and lots of paddocks were like this.

Lloyd had to come home from work early as the roads were pretty much all shut - the only way he could get back was to take a detour round Okaihau! When he went into work Bulls gorge was pretty much underwater - it's closed now - and all he could see of a car was it's roof. ( as I'm typing this the rain is back on again!)
Richard and Vanessa are blocked in as their road has fallen away.

Our house has about a million leaks - but the good old Acorn is totally dry! We really must get the roof fixed!

It has been mad!

The pictures show a river flowing through our back garden, it just appeared - normally there's no water there!!



this is how deep the water was in the garden!

The animals all seem fine though - but pretty wet. Poor things.