High and Dry

(photo source The Courier)

It has been a very interesting few days to say the least. On Wednesday we went to spend the day with another homeschooling family about an hour's drive away. I decided to go the back way rather than through Ballarat thinking that with the wet weather it'd be good to avoid the traffic. Avoid the traffic we did, but instead hit on roads under water.

After the first big "puddle" (which we thought was rather fun) they kept getting bigger and wider and then started getting scary. The worst part was when we passed the house above - there was a huge amount of water in front of us, about 20m by 20m wide. An emergency truck was ahead of me and a guy in by the fence doing something futile to try to get the water to flow I think... I beeped him and asked if he thought I could get through and he said he thought I could if I went slow. He said it was only a few inches deep (ummm... it was deeper where he was!). So with two angels in disguise (the truck in front of me and a 4WD behind me) I went through the middle of the road... slowly.....

Needless to say we didn't go back that way, and the next day they had closed that road off. We went back via Ballarat and hit locusts instead...

Yesterday we had to go into Ballarat and there were some roads under, but today it was worse. Thankfully we didn't have to go out and just stayed home and watched the news reports instead... also called up family and friends to make sure everyone was alright. This was the view from a friend's house that we had lunch at yesterday:


Glad we were there yesterday and not today!

An old wares shop that I like to visit now and then in Beaufort:

(photo source: The Age)

And this is the main street of Skipton just 10 min up the road:

(photo source The Courier)

I often go to the supermarket there if I don't want to drive all the way in to Ballarat. My heart goes out to this town because in September they were flooded too. Elizabeth has art lessons here, and last time the flood gutted the art gallery. I just noticed on Wednesday driving through that she had workmen there fixing things up, and now the waters have gone through again. It must be so devastating for her.

Having said all this, we are blessed to be high and dry in our little spot in town. Mum and Dad were coming to visit us for the weekend (and bring me my Ellie Elna!) but we decided they'd better stay safe at home rather than get caught up in the mayhem.

Well I hope I haven't bored you with news and images that you have probably seen a lot of lately. We did have a lovely day on Wednesday once we made it to our friends' house! The kids played world domination Risk together and had lots of fun. Us mums talked quilts, and more quilts, and more quilts.. and then actually did some sewing! I worked on a quick charm pack quilt, this is how far I got:


I'll get another chance to work on it when I visit Bonnie next week for a sewing day :)

Stay safe and dry everyone....