The westerly wind was cool but it was a sunny day. Anita put through three loads of washing and I got the job of hanging it up. The clothesline in morning sun was lower than the other end that is only in the sun in the afternoon.
Anita cleaned inside the Bushtracker while I did repairs and maintenance outside. Blue and Tilly had lots of walks and time in their playpen. Some of the dust under the car and van has been washed off when we drove through water over the road – only very shallow still water. There is still dust on the roof of the van and rear of both vehicles. The dust on the rear window of the Landcruiser created an interesting pattern.
We left Bluey and Tilly in the van and drove to the Cobb & Co pub for very nice steak lunches. Again there were leftovers for the grateful critters. Our next stop was the Balonne Shire Council Chambers to cast our absentee votes, which was a lot easier than joining the queues on Saturday.
Other people in our park had been told travel to the west and north is possible, but roads east are cut off by floodwater. We checked road closures for ourselves at Visitor Information and decided to stay put for another day. This post beside the Balonne River shows major flood heights. The bridge goes under when the flood is at 11 metres, and the worst flood in 2012 was 14 metres, just shy of the top of the levee. During that flood everyone except emergency service workers were evacuated from St George.
We spent some time in Golders country clothing store and Anita bought two pairs of jeans. I would have bought a lovely shirt if they had it in my size.
Bluey was interested in these lovely black faced sheep, sticking his head through the fence immediately behind our van.
A couple of vans arrived at our park late in the day. I asked which way they had come and learned they had taken a 2 hour detour around a blocked road. Two hours travel for us at say 90 kph would be about 180 kms. Our fuel consumption is around 20 litres per 100 kms, so we would use about 36 litres of diesel. At $2.10 per litre that costs about $75. We can stay an extra day in our caravan park for $35 and wait for the roads to open, rather than drive extra distances to get around the floods
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