water water everywhere

Rain, rain and more rain. Fryers Creek is flowing. Lake Johanna in the Botanic Gardens has filled, an expanse of water linking it with the overflowing Barkers Creek along the gardens' boundary after last Saturday's rain, and our dams - as good as dry a couple of months ago - are full of water. The back dam is still filling, broadening and deepening, with overflow from the dammed gully behind. We've never seen it like this.

For now, I might just let the pictures speak for themselves.

Here's the dam Ernie created by damming Corporation Gully along the side of our property after he divided his land, providing a water source for the stone houses behind us, who don't have town water. This is the view from over our 'back fence'.

Full to overflowing, it's now providing a steady trickle through the overflow at this northwest corner to our back dam the other side of Ernie's dam wall.

There's actually a small stream slowly flowing down the outlet channel, under Ernie's little 'bridge', and into our back dam.

The back dam is fuller than we have ever seen it. Or ever imagined seeing it. The line of spindly cassinia along the centre of this photo were fringing the at-best-muddy base of the gully, while the small trees were establishing themselves where water occasionally pooled in passing puddles.

Here is looking across the back dam toward Barb's place from the slope beside the gully.

The front dam, without overflow but merely draining from the shallow slopes around it, is now quite full, but nowhere near its highest possible level. Perhaps swales have been successful in slowing and absorbing some of the possible flow coming down from the grove. If we could divert flow from the road gutters down Castlemaine Street and Glens Lane perhaps we could boost it further. (You can check out the pre-rains state of this one on the 'Zone 3 dam' page.)

Even the shallow end of the front dam has filled. Here, spring is in full show, looking across the dam and Castlemaine Street to an errant blossom tree in the heritage park beyond.