Drought is a Hoax!

All we hear about is the great drought in Australia. I'm here to tell you that it's a giant hoax...We received 268 millimeters of the wet stuff overnight last Friday the 8th of June, 2007. That's 27.8 centimeters. More than a quarter of a meter. About 11 inches. Overnight!

We were awakened many times from the lightening and thunder during the night. We finally got up about 4:00 and thought we should check it out. We had suspicions about our garage as we'd had some seepage into it before. When we opened the door we saw that the entire floor was filled with about an inch of water which was soaking our shoes, camping gear, suitcases, golf clubs and assorted other items. The water was running around our house on one side like a river. The backyard had 3 1/2 inches of water flooding the patio and all the grass. The picture to the left is not on a street. It's on a bike path.

Later in the morning we heard that the road out of town was impassable so I sadly didn't head in to work. : )Instead Karen and I headed out to take a walk and to try to photograph the evidence of this anti-drought. Kyle ended up skim-boarding in out adjoining paddock and loved every wet minute of it.

I really shouldn't joke about it since 8 people died in the Newcastle area just 2 hours south of us. Five were in a truck that was swept away off the old highway in a mudslide and drowned. A 30,000 ton coal tanker is still beached at the town's main beach. Cars floated down their main street. Massive problems all over the Hunter Valley.

As always, the pictures tell the story better than I can. Don't any of you complain about a little rain for a while. I know I won't. 11 inches overnight in Old Bar. Wow.