Rising Waters

Yesterday evening Farmer Phil and I took a quick trip into Wagga to have a look at the rising waters of the Murrumbidgee River (Aboriginal for "big water" or "plenty water"). The river was to get to a peak depth of 7.3m at midnight after a lot of rain in the catchment area over the weekend - we received 30mm.


Here is Farmer Phil at Wagga's iconic Hampden Bridge. It's been a long time since the river has seen a large volume of water come down it. The river last flooded in 1993 with a peak of 8.8m at Wagga. Wagga has a levee bank system built in the 1960's to protect the city from flooding. The depth indicator is showing 6.7m, so it still had another 60cm to reach last night's expected peak.

We had a look at Wagga's "beach" that the famous "5 o'clock wave" goes past. Everyone in Wagga must have thought the same as us because there were car loads of people coming to have a look at the river. All the kids had never seen the river with so much water in it.