#Rural City of Benalla

[melbournenewsvine]

Cities and Melbourne suburbs are put on alert as water levels rise

At 3.30 a.m., an “immediate evacuation” emergency warning was sent to people in a small town Biennale In northeastern Victoria, floodwaters are ‘rapidly rising’. A major flood warning was issued shortly after for the area between Broken river and Benalla, while urging residents to “move to higher ground”. Flood levels are expected to rise early Friday morning. A resident walks through flood waters in Seymour yesterday.attributed to him:Nine news “In the 24 hours until 1 am on Friday, extensive rainfall of up to 120 mm was observed across the broken river catchments,” Vic said emergency services. Rural city dwellers Wedderburn Emergency authorities ordered “evacuate now” who said the Skinners Flat tank was likely to be breached. The order was issued at 1 a.m. Friday by the Vic Emergency as swollen rivers threaten communities across the state in what authorities have called a “major flood emergency.” Read more here. Source link Originally published at Melbourne News Vine

[lindoig3]

Australia Day and 27th

Saturday was Australia Day and another hottie so we concluded that being in the car was to be preferred.  We had to do a few chores first – laundry, some more grocery shopping, etc., then set off for the King Valley again.  We explored a few more hidden roads we seemed to have overlooked on previous occasions. We took our lunch with us and enjoyed it in a shady area beside the river but ended up at a café for a cold milkshake in Whitfield just as they were closing for the day.  We decided to take the Buffalo River road – a very long short-cut home – and just out of town, I was pulled over with lights and sirens for a breathalyser test. The cop car had apparently been following us for a while but on the dusty road, I had not seen him behind us and he was a little terse about us not stopping when we should have.  I passed the test (of course) and the cop asked where we were going and when we told him, he gave us some useful advice about what to look for and how to find the way we hoped to get home – via a locality called Carboor.  He recommended that we have a look at the Buffalo Dam and it was very worthwhile.  Lots of birds and lots of water, albeit a lot less water than most people would like.  The drought is pretty severe although the King and Kiewa Valleys were still surprisingly green after a patch a rain a week or two ago – but nowhere near enough!   The drive acroos country from the Dam through Carboor and on to Wang was quite beautiful.  Delicious curry for dinner that night  – hot day, hot night, hot curry – who’s complaining?

Despite it being Australia Day and some places being closed, there was very little fanfare anywhere we went that day – not that we spent much time in places where fanfare would have been noticed.  There were a few patriotic flags in front yards, but very little else.  I was feeling rather proud of our country myself on the day and enjoyed being in the country, but I imagine most of the celebrations would have been in places where the politics of the occasion would have been far more important. I heard that our good friend Jeff Davies had received some well-deserved recognition in the Honours List (i am bowing and scraping as I scribble these notes), so I bought a paper and discovered a few other people we knew somewhat more vaguely that had been recognised too – couldn’t find our names on the List though – perhaps they were mis-spelled?

Sunday, 27 January

Visiting Day with the family.  I unloaded a bit of gear from the back seat of the car to make room for a passenger, then we drove up to the Murray and along to Katunga where we had a visit and a cuppa with Karen.  She then became our passenger while we drove further west to Picola and visited grandson Tom and partner Laura.

They have done wonders with both the house and the farm since we were up there almost a year ago and it was really great to see them so settled in their lives together.  Tom took us for a tour of the farm and some of the nearby properties and taught us a lot about all the dozens of things involved in modern agriculture – lots of specialised machinery, electronics, land and water management - so many things we city folk never think about.  Modern farming is very scientific, highly sophisticated and requires a breadth of knowledge and expertise that sounds quite overwhelming to me.  I suppose most occupations have their own special requirements in terms of knowledge and skills but we learned a lot more about rural pursuits than I had given much thought to before.

By the time the tour finished, we were running a bit late so headed out of Dodge and back to Karen’s place almost as soon as we got back to the farmhouse.  After dropping Karen, we went on to Benalla where we bought and ate noodles for dinner rather than heading straight home where we would have had to prepare dinner around 9 or 10 o’clock – a bit too late to be eating for us.  Good noodles - recommended if you are very ungry when passing - we had the leftovers for lunch next day!