Water, Water Everywhere

For the last four and half days it has rained. Sometimes not just rain but socking great thunderstorms and cloudbursts.  Many of the road outside of Adelaide are flooded – some badly damaged to be unpassable. Rail has not been spared and much of the rail track to the  north of the state has been seriously damaged by the floodwaters. The damage over four horrendous days may take months, if not years to repair or restore. The main road East – The Augusta Highway – is intact: the Wakefield Highway to Port

Wakefield is intact and the section of the Wakefield highway to the outskirts of Adelaide, is on a higher level and undamaged.  To the west, the Lincoln Highway is flooded, The Road to Stoney Point and the Lighthouse is flooded and unpassable, the Roads to the north are all unpassable for the moment and we will have to wait until the water clears before the know the  extent of any damage. This should not effect our trip to Adelaide  and the Flinders Medical Centre next week. Well, I  hope it’s next week – we are still waiting to hear from the doctors and  information  whether or not the surgery will go ahead. I need to know soon so I can book the accommodation.

Since last Friday until yesterday (Tuesday) the rain hardly stopped – no walks at all for  four and a half days. Once we did go out and only just made it back before the  next storm hit us- and they were hard; the noise was unreal at times. There were a number of  storm cell’s each one sweeping over our area. I have never seen weather like this in all the years I have been here and speaking to older residents, they tell me likewise.   The water in my back garden was just lapping the top of the concrete slab.  On the news this evening there was reports of another storm front heading our way.  Some places recorded almost 200 mm of water.  I was thinking of  adding a Notice to Facebook – Lost; Summer. If found please return to South Australia.  

Apart from the strange weather, everything else is fairly normal. Annabell continues to improve and like me she is patiently waiting for information  about the  surgery at Adelaide..  Well the expected storm front rolled in about 10:30 last night, thunder, lightening, (sheet, not fork)  heavy rain – the works. Lasted for about an hour or so and then it was gone. Little bit of wind but nothing too serious. Took Benji out for his walk this morning and the place was calm and a bit untidy. People had put their bins out and the heavy wind at the start blew them over. I suspected this could happen so I went out and brought my bins back under cover. I put them back out when I went out with Benji this morning.

Benji turned 11 last October and I find that what used to take us 40 minutes to cover in the morning now takes almost a full hour.  I still take him out at the same time and we still walk the same distance but I find he stops a lot more frequently and perhaps I am walking just a tad slower to compensate. It’s not a problem unless he is really starting to slow down and perhaps I need to review our walking distance. I want to keep  doing what I do – 37 miles a week – but trying to get out of the

house without him is not so easy and besides there is “The Look” if I do go out and leave him. I think once we come back from Adelaide and Annabell is much better, I may go back to the wetlands and even if he is slowing down, I can always use the stroller again. At least at the wetlands I do not have to worry about on-coming cars with people going to work.