Thunder
Downunder 2000!
Photos by Anthony
Cornelius
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The following morning we were stirring, when we had some rather peculiar noises coming from outside. It sounded like a cow at first – and then eventually a managerie of different farm animals! Of course, we soon all guessed who it was – Clyve!!! It was a good thing we had the only key to the cabin, otherwise we would have been subjected to some shaving cream attacks!!! (That to come later). We all got up and got ready fairly quickly given we had slept in a lot longer than we had hoped. Doc had to go back to Sydney this morning as he was about 6hrs from Sydney and had to get back to do some more study for an upcoming exam. We sort permission with a farmer to use a hill on their property as a lookout – they were kind enough to let us their land, and we appreciated it. While we were waiting for Clyve to seek permission, Jane and I decided to use our old dam building techniques on a small gully with flowing water in it beside the road. Isn’t it funny that stormchasers like building dams…to try and flood the surrounding area!!!??? We sat on the hill for a while, watching CJs develop around us. Things looked a little more promising to our south, so we decided to head south towards Premer, get some lunch and then wait on the outskirts of town.
We were amazed at some of the flood damage from recent – trees were tangled up in some of the pylons under a rail bridge! And some the concrete foundations were ripped out from underneath the road bridge! It was phenomenal! We were watching fish in the creek keeping our interest – carp were trying to jump back up the stream, it was quite fascinating to watch! So fascinating in fact, that our eyes weren’t on the developing CJs nearby (which is perhaps why they started glaciating and throwing up anvils, before starting to precipitate! They like doing things when unsuspecting stormchasers aren’t paying attention).
Matt Smith got some good shots of the carp, but we all had to pack up, and get to the storms. Of course, roads in the area aren’t too bad – but we had to go on some dirt tracks. Jane overcame her fear of dirt-road driving at last! The dirt road was wet, with creeks flowing through the road every few kilometres. We were racing along, it was extremely soft – the poor cars copped a thrashing! Clyve’s little Festiva was bouncing up and down like a yo-yo, Michael Thompson was the only one with a 4WD and was fortunate. Fortunately, while it was soft – none of us got bogged, and we pulled up on the side of the road where it was bitumen again a little later down the road. The storms were nice, although not overly featured – they appeared to be developing nicely.
The warm humid air from the recent rain was very sweet, and there were rumbles of thunder and the odd CG!
The storms were moving N, and NNW at some points, we decided to head NW towards Gunedah where we watched the storms develop a nice guster on the western side, and produce lots of CGs on the nearby hills to the east! It was a lot of fun, all of us screaming in chorus whenever there was a CG.
The storms weakened a little and moved north, we decided to head NW towards Bogabri and Narrabri. We also decided we needed to get some food for the night. This is what you call shopping on the run…literally running into the shops, buying some food for a BBQ and then running out again (paying for the food too of course!) And then heading NW. The storms were dissipating, but there were still some nice features. In particular a nice rainbow, and a nice silhouetted flood scene.
The flooded areas were unbelievable. There was kilometre upon kilometre of grass and muck tangled up in the barb wire fences running parallel with the road. It would have been a truly awesome sight to see the area under full flood. Every so often there was an area where the road had been badly scoured by the floodwaters over the road – the power of water is unbelievable!
We got some accommodation
in Narrabri with some BBQ facilities. We decided to have a BBQ, the
annual stormchasers’ BBQ (a very informal affair). The ground though
was still wet from being underwater, and the mosquitoes were quite bad,
so it we didn’t stay outside too long during that evening. We watched
some more video footage from the day and the previous days from before
we had met up.
Report by Anthony Cornelius & Andrew McDonald |
