Nepean River flooding

9/6/2016

When people ask where I live, I'm in two minds to divulge. Its not only hard to describe, buts a great 'secret' spot. We've lived here for the past sixteen odd years and absolutely love it.

At 12:13am 6th June 2016, we received the NSW SES txt that the 'Wallacia Bridge is closed, isolating communities on the western side of the Nepean River. Don't attempt to cross while barriers are in place'. We had already heard that our other limited access points were blocked by a wall of water and later of the utter devastation of the historic town of Picton. The one downside to living semi-rural is that we are literally living on the edge of nothing-ness. We have limited roads and have bushland as far as the eye can see on the west and are bridged in on the east because of the Nepean River. We have been completely cut off from the outside world twice now. The first time was in 2001, we were trapped by the boxing day bush fires for three days with no power and a trickle of water. Thats by no way a complaint as there were countless others who lost so much its hard to comprehend. Our little community still bears the scars.

With no word of when the river was expected to subside, the husband and I ventured out to Norton's Basin to have a look at the raging river. The thunderous roar was almost deafening and our views limited. We hiked it all the way to the bottom only to be faced with the path cut off by water.

This morning the water had now dropped considerably and the council engineers have inspected the structure of the bridge and the road has been declared open. Access to the outside world has been restored (damn lol). And although we've missed two days of work and the kids two days of school...we wouldn't live anywhere else (yet)!

Nic x