An Icelandic Concern

Around midday today my mobile went off and it was our house number phoning through. 'Hmmmm" I thought, "what has happened at home that is creating grief for Artie and Sigga?". And immediately my brain started sending 'high alert, high alert' signals to my various bodily systems. Luckily, Artie was phoning to report a 'very large snake' that had taken up prime position in the chookery. Resisting the evil temptation to respond with 'OK, well Artie, the life of all the chooks is in your hands now....matey, you are going to have to catch it....I'll talk you through it, it will be OK', I reassured him that it was harmless and would have been sleeping off the night's catch of rats (after having established that Terryaki, the bantam rooster, was still alive and licking.

We've seen this fella before and i'm happy that it is content to feast on the rats.

Some flood-related images (broadly speaking)

Dexter, looking bovinely-curious at Steve - perhaps its the rainbow umbrella that has caught Dex's eye, who knows....but they do now have a paddock of very lush grass....
I planted this red paw paw a matter of weeks ago (from Daley's Nursery at Kyogole, of course) and it has just taken off like a weed. I'm so impressed. I love green papaya (paw paw) salad, so I'm looking forward to harvesting the unripened fruit from this guy in a year or two.
The floodwaters came up quite high above some of our plantings...the wild tobacco bush (stand back, they bite) and the other young trees you can see in the shot are of course usually high and dry.
What a beautiful paddock our bottom paddock has become now that we mow it on a fortnightly basis. We really are pretty proud of our work down there. And it's great to mow...you just sit on Roger (that's what we have called our zero turn ride on mower so one of us can say 'I'm just going to roger the paddock') and away you go. It takes, hmm, about 90 minutes to mow the entire lower paddock, although the next time will be longer. You can see how high the creek is - wouldn't have taken much more rain and it would have inundated the paddock.
These cuties are called storm crocuses...they just erupt out of the ground after heavy rains....most are this cream colour but we do have the occasional crimson one. I tolerate these in my Big Bush Garden even if they aren't ridgy didgy native.

Dead rough scaled snake on road to Nimbin

This is Arnar (Artie) one of our Icelandic HelpXers with a dead rough scaled snake on the Stony Chute Road about 10 kms from Nimbin. Quite dead, after having been run over by a car as it lay hard against the road sometime last night, soaking up the warmth. Artie was quite keen to take the dead snake from me and pose with it, but was slightly taken aback when I told him afterwards that it was highly venomous. (Well actually I had told him that before he took the snake, but he mustn't have heard me). There are no snakes in Iceland. Just Ice.

Here am I at Protestor's Falls (see post below)

Just me, getting drenched, today, at Protestors Falls, Nightcap National Park...shhh, don't tell anyone (see post below)...

A squelch through Nightcap National Park

Meet Sigga and Arnar (Artie) who are a really lovely couple from Iceland, would you believe it, who are staying with us as HelpXers for a week. Unfortunately their week in Larnook has coincided with very wet, unimpressive weather, which has made their various work tasks at home (you know, re-fencing the entire perimeter, felling unwanted slash pine trees, rewiring the house) a tad more difficult than it would under more pleasant weather. Anyway, we decided we'd go for a drive today and take them to Nimbin (I was offered the opportunity to buy various mind-altering substances a total of 8 times in 35 minutes, a record) and then on to Nightcap National Park. Imagine our disappointment when we saw that it was closed due to the wet weather. However, a rather large family group came wandering out of the park just as we arrived and they assured us that it was still OK to reach Protestors' Falls, which was our goal. Of course, we shouldn't have, but we had our Icelanders all so eager to go for the walk...what were we to do?
So the first challenge was crossing the flooded causeway, which really wasn't much of a challenge at all. The water was a tad cold, however.
'Are you sure you didn't purchase some of those mind-altering substances from the friendly folk at Nimbin?' I hear some of you asking. Yes, it does look a tad trippy, doesn't it. Just some cute little fungi growing on the trunk of a tree taken through a foggy lens with flash.
Artie, Sigga and Steve on the almost inundated boardwalk bridge.
And here we are at Protestors' Falls. It was incredible. The water was tumbling off the cliff face with this very audible hiss, the water droplets were being blown in sheets into our faces and the whole atmosphere was one of great turbulence, energy and drama. We didn't stay long here, today. On hot, sunny days, this spot is a place to refresh and contemplate. Today it was somewhat frightening (well OK, just a little, I'm exaggerating for effect..come on guys...)

Creek at 12noon

OK, so you can just make out the creek height indicator towards the back third of the photo which shows that the creek is now just on 2m. The creek has risen 1.8m in 5 hours and will probably continue to rise. We'll check it again at 3.00pm and post another pic. Hasn't stopped raining since yesterday evening.

Creek still high

So I managed to get home yesterday afternoon around 5ish; the creek was just under the bridge. As I said yesterday, the creek peaked at 1.5m, but this morning, while it was still over the bridge, it was only at 0.2m. We've had constant rain overnight, but only 38mm of it. However, I won't be leaving home today as it's likely the creek will continue rising. I do have a class up at Tweed Heads this morning but I can do a teleconference as there are only three students in that group (they are Masters students).