4000 Olympic Swimming Pools!!!

Just before the February rain started I checked the official water level at the wharf (the gauge in on the blue pole)..

 It was just about 0 m (difficult to be precise as marine life was in the way!). Having noticed while riding into town that the water level has risen I checked it again this on 14 February and it was at 0.32 m. This gives rise to some interesting arithmetic.

My Weather Station has recorded 88mm in this event. While I would have expected rather more in the upper reaches of the catchment Bombala - not far from the end of the Genoa River - only scored 77mm (it missed out almost completely on the rain on 13 February). I will thus take my 88mm as a ball park average for the catchment.

I have been unable to find an exact value for the size of the catchment. To get a rough estimate I drew a polygon on Google Earth that includes the Mouth of the Inlet, the source of the Genoa River and the Wallagarugh Rest Area on the Princes Highway. That had a size of 285 sq km- call it 300 sq km as a round number.

Now:

> 88mm or rain over 300 sq km is about 26 million cubic metres of water

> 32 cm of water over 25 sq km (Fisheries estimate of the size of the Inlet) is about 8 million cubic metres of water.

> Without allowing for evaporation, or the fact that some of the rain is yet to hit the catchment or the shape of the waterline at differing levels this would suggest that somewhere between half and two-thirds of the rain that fell has been retained in the soil.

Obviously these figures are very rubbery but I'd suggest they show the benefits of steady rain.

On 16 February the gauge was up to 0.36m. Another million cubic metres. For any fans of News Corpse each million cubic metres is 400 Olympic swimming pools!

By 20 February the water around the lagoon at Broome St was a lot higher than it has been.

On getting round to the wharf the level was up to 0.40 metres, so the Inlet is a round 10 million cubic metres or 4000 pools.

The purpose of the Mallacoota Inlet Fisheries Reserve Management Plan (MIFRMP) is to specify the objectives, strategies and performance measures for managing fishing activities within the Mallacoota Inlet Fisheries Reserve.

Beach rock sea

We have been to Bastion Point a couple of times recently.  The first was with the Wednesday walkers  and we went towards the mouth.  The most interesting sight was a large clump of seaweed.  One frond of bull kelp was particularly impressive being at least 45 cm wide.

 The diversity of the sea weed was also notable.

 A few sea tulips were also in the mix.

 On Thursday we headed towards the point itself.  The amount of ash was surprising.  It was forming a scummy layer in the pools ..

 .. and tide marks on the beach.

 We thought that this was a result of rain washing the ash off the cliffs in the area.

 The sea was very rough.

 This didn't appear to have driven many seabirds inshore, altough Frances drew my attention to a distant Gannet.

 The rocks beside the boat ramp were well endowed with oysters  and (probably coincidentally) 3 Sooty Oystercatchers, of which 2 were hanging around together.

 Probably not a good day for a pelagic outing.

There were quite a few surfers around for a working day.  As always there seemed to be a lot of waiting involved, both in the water ...

 ...  and waiting to get there.  The guy with the helmet had a camera attached to it.

 Finally up and going.

Flangs plenty, hail none

The weather forecast for Mallcoota on 18 February suggested a high probability of some  rain and a chance (but less than 25% ) of a lot of rain in the early evening.

In the early afternoon the Weatherzone radar showed precipitation, and a lot of storm activity, in the centre of the State. The crosses show lightning strikes (giving rise to flashes and bangs hence "flangs").

 By 1538 hrs the system had moved East and the small cell over the Wingan was causing us to hear some rumbles.

Although the BoM severe thunderstorm warning did not at this stage extend to our area, bearing in mind the apocalyptic storm in Canberra a few weeks ago, we decided to rearrange a few things to get the Pajero in the garage.  That involved extracting the kayak trailer and putting the boats under the front veranda.

By 1750 the BoM warning included our area and the Weatherzone radar supported that view.

 At about the same time the Bairnsdale radar (which doesn't show lightning strikes as I am too stingy to pay for it) showed the line of weather approaching.

The storm arrived shortly after 1800 hrs with a long of spectacular forked lightning strikes touching down well up the valley.  I didn't try to take any photos as they were not that close together and the lag on a digital camera would make in impossible to capture a strike when seen.  A nice amount of rain fell and the gutters didn't overflow (a reward for cleaning them out on Sunday).

We ended with 7.6 mm at a peak rate of 85 mm.hr - circled in red in chart below.

No hail: but I'd rather that, than looking at a car with shattered glass!

Including a further 0.8 mm on the morning of the 19th we are now up to 97.2 mm for the month (the highest fall in February for BoM Mallacoota is 221mm in 2002). so we are 30 mm more than this date last year.  Doing a pro-rata expansion for the whole year gets us to 1167 mm.

Track opposite Pony Club

As there are no tapes or signs blocking off the bush track opposite the Pony Club we took ourselves for a walk along there yesterday afternoon.  A large tree had fallen across the track about 500m further in (the stump showed it to have had only a rim of wood, about 10cm thick supporting a 20m high trunk) and one looked a bit dodgy but basically the area seemed safe .

As we arrived a flock of 6 Yellow-tailed Back-Cockatoos dropped in: they were the only birds we saw on the outing.

The heath has been burnt but there is a good amount of regrowth happening.  The small trees here looked like an orchard!

Banksia serrata shooting from the base of the trunk: there were some very large Banksias along this track and hopefully more of them will regenerate.

 A small shrub - possibly some form of tea-tree.  I have enough trouble identifying these when they are in flower, let alone when just a bunch of leaves.

 A nice double-header Xanthorrhea resinosa (grass tree).

Some of the eucalypts were mainly green regrowth but others were this attractive bronze colour.  Possibly different species?

Against the cloudy sky the regrowth all appears monochrome!

 Gahnia sp (Spear grass) is beginning to hit its straps.

Looking across the Inlet as we drove down Karbeethong Ave it was apparent that the Howe Range has still got a bit of active fire.

Interestingly the Digital Earth Australia page shows no hotspots in the area (nor anywhere close)!

Another Bastion outing

The Lions Club went at it like beavers and have finished the steps.  An excellent bit of work

The beach had a fair amount of kelp washed up.  (Indeed up by the mouth it looked as though waves had broken over the bar.)

 A lot of soot/ash was still washing up.

 Te rain has caused the water level in the Inlet to rise, covering a fair proportion of the sand bars.

We came across a large (26 birds) group of Red-capped Plovers skulking in a shelly area by the mouth.

 One plover was down at the Inlet edge hanging out with a Red-necked Stint.

When looking out from Captain Stevenson's Point I noticed 2 Ravens investigating a lump on the beach.  On looking today I found the lump to be a former deer.  I'm less sad about a feral beast dying.

On Bastion today

The obvious sight as we walked on to the beach was the smoke from the fire in the Howe Range,  It has been re-stirred by a wind change.

The wind was also sending some nice waves on to the beach.

The Lions Club were also around the beach, rebuilding the steps.  This is a temporary - but professional arrangement to allow kids to get onto the beach.  Excellent stuff guys!

But if the kids get in the water, watch out for Bluebottles. 

Shorebirds were still around: Red-capped Plovers and Red-necked Stints were in numbers and accompanied by the first Ruddy Turnstone I have seen for a while,

A close up (and somewhat edited) photo of the Turnstone.

In plaves the sandbanks looked like a Fred Williams painting!

In others, a mess of ash.

These are - if I not mistaken - Deer footprints, coming from the direction of the campground