Well, we’ve finally had a spot of rain worth documenting – the creek is flowing beautifully and rising steadily to the top of the lower bridges.
Summary: if the rain keeps up, none of us above the low bridge will be going to work tomorrow! Will the rain keep up? Thats the question…

Graph of Creek Height around 3pm (click the image to see the height now in a new window; be aware the graph goes offline after a long period of dry)

(Edit – and since I took that screencap the graph has turned again and is rising – you can click through to see it now!)

We popped down around 3pm during a lull in the rain, to take some photos.

Pszczonka Crossing on Cedar Creek Rd – the first bridge

The first bridge was still clear at 3pm

Downstream view of the first bridge – don’t think we’ve ever published this angle before. The metal sheets act as a gate during the dry, to stop the cattle getting out under the bridge!

On to the low bridge, the second bridge along Cedar Creek Rd.

Upstream view of the low bridge. Lapping, so another good downpour will put it over. However, our experience of these new bridges is they take much longer before they go under and come down faster. So shouldn’t be a big problem…

Downstream view of the low bridge. Clearly we will need a lot more rain before the first bridge goes under…

Wider image of downstream view of the low bridge.

Next we have the Green Bridge – the third bridge along Cedar Creek Rd.

Flowing beautifully, but nowhere near the bridge yet.

Don’t you love that smoothed water effect of a long exposure?

The Fourth Bridge is still a long way from going under.

Downstream

And very pretty!

Upstream

Bonus photos:

Curtis Lane (we cant often get to this spot as we live beyond the low bridge and don’t want to be caught out. But she is rising in a leisurely fashion today…

My favourite: the stone bridge. Its so pretty! I’ve seen this with only the capstones peeking out of the maelstrom – but not today!

So, will we have more rain tonight? The radar indicates very probably. If we get more rain… the bridge will be under and we will be having a rain day! Yay! Or so the kids would all say if they weren’t already on school holidays 😉

Click the image to view the national radar in a new window now

What sort of rainfall did we have?

56mm to 9am this morning (Click the image to see the latest rainfall)

and another 63mm to 3pm today – our tanks are full, thats for sure!

And, lastly, here is the rainfall over time for the last 24 hours, up here in Cedar Creek (data from our weather station)

Stay safe, stay dry!

Well, we were forecast 60 – 80 ml, but we are over 130ml with no sign of it stopping.
The new causeways have been absolutely AWESOME – the creek goes up, they flow over for a bit, the creek goes back down (and here’s the cool part) the bridges are passable again while the rain stays low! Huuuuuge improvement!

Here’s the pics from 5:30pm:

2nd bridge

The low bridge has clearly been under, judging by the debris on it, and was going under again soon when this was taken – judging by the increasing rain since then, its under now

upstream side – going under soon, but note how the upstream isn’t significantly higher then the low stream!

4th Bridge

4th bridge has at least a little time to go

4th bridge coping nicely with the flow!

At 6PM, the river height graph suddenly spiked, finally telling us what we all already knew – the bridges were going under…

Click the image to see the current river height at BOM (bear in mind that page can be unavailable in long dry periods)

Well, one day of rain will have nicely flushed the creek – and the poor old thing did need it.
Overall summary of rain was over 150ml (Mount Glorious reports 37+127 = 164ml), which will, of course, vary across the region.

I don’t believe the 4th bridge went under at all and the low bridge only went under briefly. So the new construction, while not ideal, is definitely an improvement.

Click to view the current creek height (the page goes offline in long dry spells)

Well, it has been a while since we had anything to post here – we’ve had regular showers, so there is enough water in the tanks, but we haven’t had any big rain, and the creek has been looking pretty dry recently, which is pretty weird when the land around it is green.

But, heavy rain has been forecast across the region for today and, as promised, the heavens opened around dawn and down came the rain.

We’ve been down the road around 9:30 and had a look around – here’s the report:

The fourth bridge

The Fourth Bridge is still well away from going under – that new bridge is a beautiful piece of work and there is still plenty of height under it.

The Green Bridge still has a couple of feet to go (we forgot the brolly, so didn’t stop there).

The drain from the cliff above the green bridge is still operating very poorly – the run off runs onto the bridge before it flows over into the creek. Cant be good for the bridge’s structural integrity.

Kirk Lane, from above

The new bridge on the Low Bridge has helped as it isn’t under yet, but its going under soon – they just didn’t make it high enough, as we said.

Kirk Lane bridge, from below – note that its almost under

Because the Low Bridge isnt under, we were actually able to get further down to get more pictures.

The first bridge

The first bridge, as is normal, is coping well with the water flow.

Rainfall – BOM says we’ve had over 100 ml! Very impressive

Click the image to see the current rainfall record

The creek height measurer took a while to turn on, but got there in the end (it didn’t really spike like that)

Click the image to see the current reading

The low bridge would normally be under around the 1 metre line, so this is a really big improvement! But it seems a shame to put so much into the fixed cost of starting the project, and not paying the little bit extra to raise the bridge another foot.

So, Rain! Exciting stuff. Bit of a late start to the wet season, but we’ll take what we can get 🙂

Well, TC Marcia has been and gone, with no damage in Cedar Creek that I have heard about. The creek went up, the bridges went under, the creek went down, the bridges were clear – lets look at the aftermath.

Downstream of the Green Bridge, the swimming hole will soon be full of screaming tourists again, as it is looking good. Its nice to have a flood with no significant damage to be repaired 🙂

Placid water below the Green Bridge… a little different to yesterday!

Upstream of the Green Bridge – doesn’t look like the bridge took any damage this time. Phew!

Under the Green Bridge, you can see a log is stuck, but the structure looks sound.

Above the Green Bridge.
The water in the creek will need a couple of days of flow to clear…

Refuse on the Green Bridge, after the water went down

The new ditch below the cliff above the Green Bridge. Not draining, as usual 😦

The trench beside the cliff above the Green Bridge did its job and I believe the road along here remained water free through the flood, but it would be nice if it drained rather than became a mosquito pool…

The recent work on the cliff edge above the green bridge has held up in the macro, although there has still been a small amount of rock spill.

Some rock spill which needs clearing, but we have gotten away without any damage this time!

Bit of silt and backfill in the ditch… It’ll fill up with a few floods without some maintenance…

At 8am the Low Bridge still had water over it…

… but is quite passable!

Very pretty at the low bridge (don’t fall in, though!)

Water on the low bridge well down from the max…

The Fourth Bridge is now clear – in good news, a lot of the weed trees that were springing up have been ripped out by the rushing water – everything has an upside 🙂

The water isn’t very far below the 4th Bridge, but with no more significant rain forecast the bridge will be clear for some time.

The Pretty Bridge off Cedar Creek road has stood up to the flood – of course!

Upstream of the Fifth Bridge – lots of lovely water here 🙂

The creek is dropping back to normal levels quickly…
(See the current graph on the BOM site by clicking here)

Rainfall was 80 – 90 ml for the area. Rain stopped around 5pm, but was lessening from noon.

As Tropical Cyclone Marcia wends her slow way south, now a tropical low, the rain has reopened, having stopped overnight.
Here’s the story so far…

The graph shows how the rain stopped overnight (as the monsoon moved off) and the creek dropped, but it spiked straight back up when the tropical low moved in this morning. Our creek is very reactive to rainfall, once the surrounding soils are soaked. Click to view the graph now on the BOM site.

The Fourth Bridge is impassable – photos never look like much here, but trust me – you would not want to drive through this!

See that 1 metre marker? Yep, not taking anything through there today!

Water is flowing quite strongly from the cliff edge above the Green Bridge – the gutter should really run outside the road to the creek, not over the road like this, but we have little control over Council’s engineering decisions 😦

This is the cliff edge above the green Bridge. The engineering done on the side of the road is… OK. Still a bit of rockfall, still no where for the water to run to, although I suppose its better than pooling on the road.

Looking westwards, we can see the Green Bridge is just lapping – see that little pool on the right? Thats the water just making it over the edge from the creek.
She’s a good bridge, I hope she holds up to it this time!
In the time taken to process these photos and start writing this entry, the graph has risen (no one is surprised) so I expect the green bridge is now under

The green bridge, looking downstream – a roaring dangerous conflagration. And yet usually our friendly swimming hole. Amazing…

Green bridge, viewed from the car park. Not swimming time! Just about to overflow

Oops! We caught it in action (Get off the bridge, Dave!)

The Low Bridge is well under.

Only a couple of quick photos this time as we were doing a dash in order not to be caught away from home between bridges, with the Green Bridge about to go under

The property at the end of Massey’s Creek Court (hi guys!) has a dam on it – as you would expect with this level of rainfall, it is overflowing. Hope the wall holds! This water flows across Cedar Creek Road, coming out near the ‘pretty bridge’.

The pretty bridge on the side of Cedar Creek Rd is flowing well, and of course is standing up to it well. Now this is proper engineering!

Rainfall this morning is quite high – high enough to turn on the Cedar Creek Alert monitor. As you can see, the centre of the tropical low is moving East of us (you can tell because the numbers are higher there) so once this rain ends as the Low moves further south the creek will drop. Click here to view rainfall now on the BOM site.

Who’s had enough rain already! Me too! Shame its going to hang around for a few days yet…

Did everyone get the pantry stocked up before the rain hit? Good! Because we aren’t getting out of here for a while.

Here’s the photos for 3pm…

The Green Bridge is just about to lap

The Low Bridge is well above, and flowing fast

Look at that water roar under the private bridge!

and the Fourth Bridge is well under. Who wants to place bets on whether any of the concrete slabs will flip out this time?

The rain slowed down for a while there and the water height dropped – Cedar Creek goes down just as fast as it goes up – but then it started falling again.

View the current graph at the BOM site.

Further down the road (where we can’t get while the Low Bridge is blocked), locals tell us that Hals Road is about to go under too.

Well, the rain slowed for a few minutes so we thought we would pop out and get some more pics

The Fourth Bridge is high. I commented that it was almost crossable and Dave agreed that in a real emergency he would try it. It looked a lot higher in person, but this bridge always does

The Green Bridge is high, but well below being impassable

Downstream of the Green Bridge, is flowing high – its going to be a great swim there when the weather passes.
You can see a video from the other side of the bank on Facebook (thanks Justin)

More of the downstream side of the Green Bridge

More of the downstream side of the Green Bridge

The Low Bridge is well and truly under. Someone said they had just walked across it and I told them they were an idiot. Don’t do that!

An arty photo.

Water getting higher, as you can see.

The BOM graph shows it reaching about 2.5 metres (the rain had stopped just before we went out, and the creek starts dropping immediately. View the current state of the graph on the BOM Site.

Well, the photographer is enjoying himself! I think he likes going out in the wet!

Water in Cedar Creek is rapidly rising – the Low Bridge is under, although passable. Here’s the pics…

The 4th Bridge is now under, but still passable

Water swirling near the Green Bridge

Upstream side of the Green Bridge – still about a foot to go

Low Bridge Downstream

Low Bridge panoramic view

Kirk Lane – careful crossing, we saw some logs floating over!

The water under the Ornate Bridge is coming up!

So, quick summary – if you aren’t home and intend to be, its time to come in!

I was told people like to see the creek height graph, so here it is:

You can view the original on the BOM site to get the current data.

Marcia, Marcia, Marcia..
Ok, I am sure everyone is sick of that joke already 🙂
Tropical Cyclone Marcia is bearing down on the north coast and lots and lots of rain is preceding it – it would be lots and lots of lovely rain, if it weren’t that we’ve had a moist month and our water tanks are already full.

Its 7am and the bridges are not yet under, but what the heck – here are some baseline photos so we can compare how it goes through the day

The First bridge is still open and will be for quite some time

Excellent pipe work under the First Bridge!

The wider pipes under the Fourth Bridge mean it stays open for longer

The Low Bridge‘s small pipes mean it is rising rapidly, but still passable

Pipes under the Low Bridge having trouble with the volume of water…

The high side of the Low Bridge is almost lapping

Not a big flood – yet!