Pictures of the Weather and Water.

Mallacoota has just had a very wet period.  I will cover the weather stats in another post but this one has some photographs of the impact of the weather (and a few other incidental items).

The wetness went well inland, unlike one recent event which was restricted to the coast.  The Genoa River rose by 1.65 m according to an official gauge at The Gorge.  We only found out about that later but did notice that the level of the Inlet was a lot higher on our morning walk.  It continued to rise during the day, going from about 0.2m on Monday to 0.86 by 1100 on Tuesday.  As a result, the jetties were going under (again).

The water is coming down from upstream,  Here is a photo of the Genoa Flats (from Facebook, taken by Lisette Read)..

At the wharf some of the Pelicans seemed to have shrunk (comments on Facebook included a reference to them eating with spoons rather than shovels and a warning about washing in hot water).

Going round to Captain Stevenson's Point some full sized Pelicans flew past going to join colleagues on the sand bank.

The mouth is well open ...

.. and the rough sea outside was fighting well to enter the Inlet against the flood flowing out.

We moved round to Bastion Point where white water was available.

Sand was in shorter supply and getting less by the minute.

There are many strange life-forms washed up in such events and I initially thought this was one of them.  However once the wash receded it became a lump of basic seaweed that had been encapsulated in foam,

Did I mention that the sea was rough?

After the Betka opened a couple of weeks ago it had closed itself off again.  That has now been remedied totally naturally and a good outflow is going.

Looking West from Betka gives another view of the rough sea.

The contractors have done an excellent job rebuilding the retaining wall along the track.  Hopefully it will be a long while before another fire comes along.

A few images of the cliffs and sea.

Some flowers are beginning to appear.  This is certainly a member of the family Fabaceae and I am pretty sure Kennedia prostrata: the leaves look very small but the Flora of Victoria indicates a size range of 6-35 mm long and 6-35mm wide (with several possible shapes)!

One of the plants that has emerged very widely since the fire is Solanum aviculare (Kangaroo Apple).  This was the first flower we spotted (and thus exciting) but along the track there were many others.