For the last few weeks there's been a little guilt admitting that we'd all kind of like a week or so without rain.

Heresy - we know. But it's been a bit wet.

"Bit" wet doesn't begin to explain what the hell happened on Friday night / Saturday. We had 97mls of rain in less than 24 hours (and lots of places had a hell of a lot more than us!). There has been a LOT of rain in the Central Goldfields area - Creswick / Clunes were flooded out, parts of Ballarat submerged, parts of Dunnolly evacuated, houses flooded in Carisbrook.

Okay so "I love a sunburnt country" comes true once in a while - but does it have to pick the weekends when I'm home on my own.

Got through the day in one piece, albeit with one very badly flooded chook yard, one complete mudbath that used to be a back yard, and way too much shovelling of bloody mud for my liking - but everything coped pretty well.

These photos were taken well into the late afternoon (about 8 hours after the peak of the rain). There's no point in even pretending that we had it anywhere near as bad as more low lying areas - but I tell you it was quite scary enough as it was - you hear the stories about how quickly rivers and creeks turned into torrents and I can well understand it.

These photos are from the area at the back of the bit of bush on the block that we call "the soak". Now it's normally where the Alpacas go if the weather is going to get a bit hairy - it does get damp down there, as in a bit spongy with a bit of water lying on the ground. The photos don't really show it (the video I took later in the day probably gives a better idea) - but there was a torrent running through there all day yesterday.

You can sort of see a little bit of what looks like a very small creek - it's an indentation in the ground normally.

Even when we've had rain before there's never been any sign of water to this extent. You can't really see it from the photos - but again, this is around 5.00pm - and the rain started at 6.00pm the night before - and it was RUNNING / rushing through here.

About where I'm standing to take this one is about where the water got to at one stage in the afternoon.

At no stage could you say we weren't warned what was coming - the weather bureau / government authorities had been sounding the klaxon's for a few days in advance and I'd spent most of Friday deciding where to move the chook tractors to. I'm kind of glad I dismissed the vegetable garden area as an option and put them up under the pergola and as high in the house yard as I could get them because this is what was still lying on the ground all those hours later (the "puddle" is the hole in the ground where one of the duck's baths used to be).

The neighbours just dropped in to see if everything was okay (and to show me the photos they took yesterday of people jetsking on the Avoca Oval) - this is the paddock just at the bottom of their place - which is normally just a paddock - with a bit of a stream running through it).

More over the back of Peter's dam and into the paddocks behind (again remembering hours after the rain event). According to the neighbours there are fences washed out along the Natte Yallock road and a lot of drowned sheep.

The water catchment track around the base of the rise was still running many many hours after the rain had slowed to showers - and it continues to run this morning:

The dam overflowed all day - consistently. I think that the water from it was part of the problem in the chook yard as it was running across the top of the property, and being diverted straight down past the pig sheds and into the chook yard. A lot of it was also running into the gutters out the front - and once they had been cleared of a big blockage, straight into the soak.

And because there are days when you'd swear the universe was just winding you up - it's sunny, warmish and the ducks hit the very full dam this morning at full canter. The dogs and I are still puddling around in mud.

Oh and they are predicting rain on Thursday - not a lot according to the weather bureau, maybe just another 20mls!