... And Flooding Rains

Just a quick one, for the moment, as I'm about to walk out of my office for the final time this year and in four hours I have to be on a plane to Perth.

Which is not a bad thing, the way events are moving here in Canberra at the moment. Like a lot of the east coast, we've had some rain in the last few weeks. So much so that there is a fair bit of flooding going on. This morning they started evacuating Queanbean, and earlier today they opened up all the floodgates on Scrivener Dam for the first time in, well, pretty much forever. (Actually, I seem to recall reading somewhere that this last happened in 1976)

To give you a rough idea, here are a couple of photos that one of my colleagues took, a little earlier today. The first is of Scrivener Dam (For those not in the know, Scrivener is the Dam which creates Lake Burley Griffin, which is, in turn, the main water body around which Canberra is built)

(Photo: Greg Battye)

This one shows four of the five floodgates open (the fifth, closed, is on the right of the picture) and the water pouring into the Molongolo River, which is usually a slow moving, muddy trickle, but which now looks like this:

(Photo: Greg Battye)

In any case, it's a good time to be leaving Canberra. Preferably not in an Ark, either, though I suspect that's not far away.

As of ten minutes from now, I'm actually on leave and this time tomorrow will be sitting out the front of a little house on Rottnest Island in Perth, along with Min, Toby and my parents. I imagine that there'll be beer involved.

Anyway, as I have a few little bits and pieces to do before I can leave, I'm going to sign off now.