Time to go and check the creek crossing. What creek crossing? It was gone - completely washed away.
This was the view of the crossing at about 7.00am on Thursday the 20th. The heap of debris piled against the tree on the far bank shows how high the water had been during the night - more than a metre higher. Gordon tried wading across, but got only a quarter of the way and decided it was too dangerous. Exciting, but the reality was that Hanneke needed to get to Brisbane that day, so as to be at the University to give her Masters confirmation presentation early the next morning. We decided that there was nothing we could do at this stage but enjoy the spectacle of flowing water - and we had plenty of that. Time to check out the creeks in the gullies leading into the main creek.
Above is the creek some of you will have seen (Sandstone Pool Creek) - it usually contains water only in a couple of deep sandstone pools where the wildlife comes to drink - that's one of the pools overflowing at the top of the photo.
Every gully was flowing and the Back Creek was rushing. Hanneke's Mum and I walked along this creek in August when it was dry. Totally unrecognisable now.
Further up Back Creek there's a rock ledge that we have never seen water flowing over. It must have been truly spectacular when it was at its height during the night, with another 50cms or more of water flowing over it.
Higher up Back Creek there was still a good flow of water.By lunchtime we decided we had to do something about getting Hanneke to Brisbane. There was no way we were going to drive across the creek that day, so we packed our bags and waded across and then walked out to Vicki's place and she drove us to the bus stop near the Gatton University campus - where we waited, standing on the seat of the bus shelter to avoid the wind and rain as three storms swept through the area - and eventually the bus arrived 55 minutes late. In all it took us about five hours to get from home to Brisbane.
Hanneke gave her presentation on Friday morning (she was accepted) and we got a lift home with one of her examiners who lives in Toowoomba.
Of course we had to walk into our place and wade across the creek, but the water had dropped a good half metre or more. It was now obvious that the flow had scoured out a 60cm deep hole on one side that would have to be filled before we could think about getting the Subaru across.
So we loaded up the trailer with a good heap of rocks -
some of them a bit bigger than others - 
and kept dropping them into the biggest holes until we had a "reasonably" level surface on which to drive across.And that's how we are getting in and out until we can get Bernie (our earthmoving wizard) to re-build the crossing.
