Wet

From what I can understand, the 2017/2018 Wet Season was average. What I know is that the 2018/2019 and 2019/2020 Wet Seasons were almost non-existent. And from what I’m seeing fall from the sky so far of the 2020/2021 Wet Season, we’re doing pretty bloody good.

When I first bought my block in September 2015, the previous owner told me that he never knew the dam on it to have ever gone dry. In October 2019, it was just a mud puddle. When I returned to my block in July 2020 after two and a half years in South Australia, there was enough water in it to carry the wildlife until the Wet Season arrived. Trekking down there on the 21st of February 2021, I discovered it at over 100% capacity. I have never seen so much water in it before. Even in the 2015/2016 Wet Season there wasn’t as much water as what’s in there right now. 

To use the word “trekking” isn’t an understatement either. If anyone wanted to do a tough mudder, all they had to do was come out to my property. Anywhere that my horse’s feet have sank, I seemed to have found. Knee-deep in mud, I would have to crawl out of their hoof holes. 

When I wasn’t dragging myself through mudholes and puddles, I was in town, enthusiastically checking the height of the Katherine River. From Friday the 19th of February, Katherine Town was on minor flood-watch. We were hoping the river would crack the 16-metre mark. Alas, it got as far as 15.54 metres (officially)… Which is still awesome! When in the last Wet Season the Katherine River barely flowed, to have even got to 15.54 metres is a total blessing. Every man and his dog were spending the weekend checking out the river height and watching it flow. 

Back at the mud pit I was cursing the fact that my property had reached full saturation with nowhere to go to the toilet except in a bucket. The horses have been hanging out at camp, putting holes in the ground wherever they step, lifting their tails to pee and making the place just smell generally. Up until now, I have never considered horses to be smelly creatures. I’ve given up trying to keep the floor in the caravan clean. The chook sleeps inside due to the rain, unceremoniously plucked from her perch on the towbar and put on the floor. The weeds are enjoying being untouched as no car nor ATV is getting anywhere on the place to eradicate them, especially at places where they’re at their worst. Lucky that the weeds guy and I have been able to put out a bit of selective herbicide before the drenching rain began. 

Despite the frustrations which can come with having to leave my car at the bottom of the driveway and walk up to camp, traipsing mud indoors, letting weeds grow etc. the Wet Season is my favourite time of year. It’s when life gets breathed back into the land and the wildflowers appear. My favourites are the little, tiny ones. They speckle the green with their colours. There’s time to pause in the Wet Season. Can’t go anywhere, can’t do anything. Just read a book, watch a movie, do a puzzle. Relax. Let your belt out a few notches. It’s only going to keep raining until the end of March!

The dam on my property