Thread: Another interesting day

Had one of those days.

Started by being woken by thunder at 0500, couldn't get back to sleep. 4mm had fallen by the time I got up and emptied the gauge. Got the kids ready for school, took them down to the bus in the 2a, pouring rain, had been another 15mm by the time I left. Bit worried about the creek, but it was dry (well, it was wet like everything else, but you know what I mean). River only a trickle.

On the way back after putting them on the bus, arrived at the creek a minute or so behind a wall of water two feet high - decided it was too risky, so went back through three gates and through another four to use a low level river crossing upstream of the creek. Not helped by the fact the engine was refusing to idle, and stopped at every gate.

Pulled the carburetter to bits to clean the idling jet - twice. Didn't find anything, but it ran properly after putting it together the second time.

Then this afternoon, left to pick the girls up, and the creek was down to about six inches, so I just started across (in 2nd Low)- and ended up bogged in the middle - chassis sitting on loose silt and all four wheels spinning, water up to the top of the wheels. (I could not have used the higher river crossing, as by this time the river was up - the route I was using crosses the river on a high level private bridge)

So I called my elderly sister who lives next door and got her to drive to my place and bring the County down, and asked my niece who had her RDO and lives in the village to pick up the kids. Fortunately, it was in a spot the phone works! When the County arrived, we tried to pull out backwards. Dug four holes and didn't budge it. So then we drove back in the County to my house to get the tractor. Flat battery (left the UHF switched on), so I put the County battery in. My sister drove her RAV4 down - I think she had visions of us getting the tractor bogged, or didn't want to travel in the tractor. Drove the tractor down (about 3km), and broke a towing cable trying to pull it backwards, so crossed the creek upstream from the crossing, and then easily pulled the 2a out forwards. Parked the tractor, and went and got the kids. On our return I just drove across the creek where I had crossed with the tractor, with no problems, and then we faced the problem of three vehicles and two drivers, which meant a bit of running around. The County is still sitting next to the tractor shed - i will change the batteries in the morning.

I think the problem with the creek crossing is that it has had a lot of sand brought down since the fire a year ago, and last week my next door neighbour, on whose place it is, cleaned the sand out of the crossing, leaving the crossing a foot or more lower than the creek bed, but free of sand - when this banker came down, it filled the crossing with silt, making it a real boghole.

Whether the kids go to school tomorrow will depend on how much rain we have overnight - the total today is now up to 29mm, but it looks as if it is clearing up.

John

Originally Posted by Lotz-A-Landies

John

Sounds like a job for a couple or three concrete pipes - and a few ton of roadbase. LandAndy may pop over and grade it for you!

Would take out all the adventure though.

Diana

I very much doubt that this would stand up to a thunderstorm on the creek catchment since the fire. Almost never used to get a significant flow in this creek, but on a number of occasions since then I have seen it thirty metres wide and two metres deep and raging.
The crossing is just below where it comes out onto the river flat, about half a kilometre from where it flows into the river (almost the first place where you can drive down the outer bank). It almost stops flowing a few hours after the rain.
In this case I had a total of 34mm, but I think there must have been close to double that upstream (my neighbour who helped me had quite a bit more, and the village itself only 10mm), and although when it first got to the crossing the flow was close to a metre deep, by the time I got stuck six hours later, it was down to about six inches, and the following morning just a trickle. By yesterday afternoon, 24hours later, the crossing was dry, and the sand starting to compact, although the banks, where the edges of the high flow had deposited fine silt, were still a bit sloppy.

John