The Queen's Birthday long weekend, June 2007, brought a torrential storm with 450mm of rainfall, and caused major flooding in the Hunter, Central Coast, and the Macdonald and Colo Rivers. It was the worst flood since 1949. Although our house was well above the official 100-year flood level, the water came up above the kitchen benchtops. We decided that the only thing to do was to raise the house, which was fortunately fairly easy since it was already on piers. It is now 2m higher, which will give us a bit more security. Flood pictures by James Brigden and his mobile phone!

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Early morning - the Glen was cut off and the barn at First Farm was flooded, but our house looked safe.	By midmorning, James bush-bashed over the hill to our place and things didn't look so good.	We were well and truly under, and the water was still rising.
On Wednesday, Teresa, Mary and the boys were able to get in with our two 4-wheel drives, but the track across the front paddock was quite exciting.	The home dam was also across the roadway.	State of the house - the waterline (arrow) was about 1.2m from the floor.
The cows had taken the opportunity to invade the vegetable garden.	The cabin was an even bigger disaster area	And some stuff had been washed way down the creek.
In September the lifting gets underway.	Big steel girders are placed underneath	And the house ends up balanced on piles of timber.
The state of the track was still difficult for the brick truck, so our poor old ute had to work rather hard.	The brickies got to work at high speed	And soon there was a new, heftier wall around the house.

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