NSW Deployment - day 3C

Typing this post on the flight from the Gold Coast to Melbourne; I'll upload it when I'm back on terra firms.

After lunch on day 3 we returned to the unit and most of us were anticipating a bout of twiddling our thumbs for a few hours. It was confirmed that we'd be let go on Day 4, and I think most of us were at a loose end.  Just then a job came in of six trees having fallen and blocked a driveway up near Nimbin. It was decided to send two-and-a-half crews up to deal with it; joy of joys, the crews to go were Ballarat, Chelsea and Barwon.

We were all a bit curious as to what we'd encounter up there: Nimbin is hard-core hippie territory, and this happened to be the weekend of the MardiGrass cannabis festival (I heard one of the organisers interviewed on the local ABC radio up here; he sounded ... unfocussed).  It may or may not surprise you that on the way up we sighted one woman walking across a muddy paddock in a business shirt and gumboots and apparently not much else.  Also spotted was a heavily bearded überhippie, a hippiechick in a flowy skirt, and somebody getting a tjembe out of a car. Most people's gates were decorated with designs of rainbows and crescent moons. Oh, and on the way back we spotted a stand of teepees.  Yeah, we were in hippie country.

Be all that as it may, I can tell you it's beautiful country up there: lots of steep hills and rocks, surrounded by gorgeous fertile green forest and pasture.

When we found the farm we'd been sent out to, it was only accessible by a muddy track. After about half a kilometre we came to a strongly flowing creek with a number of downed trees in it: a phone all to the owner established that these weren't the trees he was worried about: what he was worried about was trees that were down over a crossing another kilometre on! He wasn't able to come down to help us as his leg was in a brace.

We decided that we couldn't help: even if we could safely cut up the trees blocking our path (we couldn't) we had nothing to winch them out of the way with, and only one vehicle with four-wheel-drive.  We marked the gateway with SES tape to help the local crews find it again and drove back to Lismore: the local crews will fe able to get through and take care of the job when the creek goes down.

We probably chose a good moment to head back: the creeks were still rising and one creek we'd crossed on the way out (Booerie Creek, I think) was by then a couple of inches over its bridge (we heard later that Nimbin was eventually cut off altogether).

Back at base we helped the local team straighten up their operations area and said our thank-you's and farewells.  They've been very hospitable to us.

Back at the motel, a shower and somewhat clean clothes felt heavenly.  Back to the Workers Club for a relaxed dinner and a few drinks (for me, a surprisingly light Greek pizza, red wine and red velvet cake) and generally swapping tales with other volunteers.

A little before 10pm, back to the motel for a welcome night's sleep.