The week that was....
What an interesting Christmas holiday period we have had at Annaburroo Station. On Christmas Eve we made sure all equipment and machinery around the workshop and homestead area were secure in preparations for an impending cyclone. Christmas morning we woke to a dark and threatening sky. We feed the sale steers, moved the bulls to higher ground, moved the horses and then sat back and enjoyed the rest of Christmas day.
Christmas night saw us officially placed on cyclone alert with the threat of cyclone Grant threatening to cross land east of Point Stuart and continue on down just east of Annaburroo Station. Much to our relief we woke Boxing Day to find the cyclone was crossing land further east and was rapidly weakening to a tropical low.
Lucky for us and the livestock we only received 30ml of rain and some moderate gusty winds from cyclone Grant. Not so lucky was the Edith Falls catchment area which reported up to 385ml of rain in a 24hr period. The rising flood waters damaged the Stuart Highway - highway connecting Darwin to the rest of Australia - and devastated the only rail line leading into Darwin.
Although we did not receive the deluge of rain that was predicted for us, we are down stream from where the majority of rain fell. The Mary River has risen rapidly and now has back filled into Mt Goyder Billabong and the creek systems here on Annaburroo. Bamboo Creek is only passable via the homemade bridge, and all the low lying areas of Annaburroo Station are flooded. Lucky for us all the breeder cows were moved to the scrub paddocks before Christmas, and all the breeding bulls mustered and put out with the cows. Normally we do not put the bulls our with the breeders until mid January but this year we have had to join them earlier due to the early wet.
The sale cattle that we are grain feeding daily have held up really well over the past week despite the weather conditions. Wednesday afternoon saw them camping up and resting for a few hours in Weaner paddock when the rain finally passed. I took a photo with the cattle resting, trees back full of birds and a beautiful rainbow in the background. I will post a photo set of the past week.
From all of us here at Annaburroo Station we wish you a Happy New Year and may 2012 be a wonderful year for you all.