Just as I was
wondering: “now I restarted the blog, but what shall I write
about?!”, we had a rainfall of biblical proportions.
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| He was not impressed and kept running around |
Over the past weeks,
it sometimes rained a lot here, and the driveway to the main house
and our cottage was occasionally flooded. The landlord had a whole
exhibit of different pumps and hoses that he employed to get the
water off the driveway, because otherwise it would flood their house. At some point it appeared he had pumped the water to somewhere from where it
actually flooded back onto the driveway, but eventually he had things
under control and most water disappeared.
Then came Friday,
with another warning for a severe storm. Friday was also the day our
visitors from the Netherlands would return from their tour around New
Zealand, and would spend one more night with us before flying back to
NL. It rained most of Friday, and the waterlevel in the driveway rose
again. The landlord was fulltime making adjustments and acquiring yet
more powerful pumps. Nevertheless the water became so deep that I had
to guide our guests in their car through it or they would have become
stuck with a waterlogged engine.
We have a 4 wheel
drive car, and I remembered why having such a vehicle is not just for
getting into the mountains and off the beaten track in New Zealand.
In case of small and large natural emergencies, a 4wd is usually
quite handy around town as well… So we drove into Lincoln for a
lovely dinner in the new pub in our car.
During the night it
rained and rained and rained and big gusts of wind and rain kept
hammering the cottage and I hardly slept. After a big breakfast of
pancakes (trying out my B&B skills), we all set out to do various
tasks by car. By now, not only the driveway but the whole
parking/horse-saddling area had flooded and water was coming up to
the cottage via our walkway. Luckily we all had waterproof hiking
boots and could get into the cars relatively dry. We then set out,
Thomas and me not going much further than the post shop, German
butcher and supermarket in Lincoln. We encountered people in a large variety of
rain jackets and boots, parts of roads were under water, and some
smaller settlements close to the coast were evacuating.
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| Flooded driveway with dog for scale |
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| The (submerged) pump keeping at least the house dry |
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| Our cars |
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| The path to our cottage |
When we got home,
states of emergency were declared in several towns South, and quickly
also in Christchurch and the Selwyn district, where we are. The
Selwyn river burst its banks, the Heathcote river in Christchurch
burst its banks. Evacuating started in those areas. Our guests had
gone off to a last sightseeing tour over Dyers pass, and as nearly all
roads were now being closed due to the flooding, we called
them to come back home before they would get stuck somewhere. Luckily
they made it back, having encountered a lot of water. After a warming
chicken soup and meticulous packing of a lot of stuff in 3 bags, we
decided to drive to the airport hours before their flight, as
most flights were delayed due to the weather and they wanted to try to get on an earlier flight to get the connection in Auckland. The flooding was
also getting closer to the airport and we wanted to get there (and back)
before more roads were closed.
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| Weight of bag = (weight of bag+person)-weight of person |
All ended well.
Saturday evening it finally stopped raining, and Sunday was sunny. It
was another good day for looking at houses to buy: we saw 2, one with
a flooded garden, and another with water in the house that had come
through the really old windows (and the smell of a dead fish in one
of the rooms, not a good selling point). So at least we again know
better what not to buy.
Here is a link to photos of flooded Christchurch: https://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/95006856/photos-state-of-emergency-declared-as-christchurch-floods
