Muriel: Checking out the local flooding...

Muriel and I set of in a foggy cool morning so I just knew that Muriel was up for a quick walk. We followed a bunch of paths and cycleways that took us around and through watercourses and we got to see the aftermath of that quick stormy deluge we got yesterday afternoon / evening.

It was nice and cool when we set off today. Muriel was in fine form and was ready to leave before Her Mum and I had finished saying hello! Muriel is a voracious walker and demands a walk each day… the earlier the better!

We jumped onto a cycleway that led us past a watercourse that we would be coming back on, in our big loopy walk. At the bottom of the watercourse there was the debris strewn about by the rising waters. On our way back we took a rough measurement and at one point the “Tide” was up about 1.8m from the “Low-Tide” point. So that was a big wall of water at some stage!

We continued off up the hill, setting a pretty good pace so I was thinking of loops we could do. So we hit another cycleway / walking path and skipped along that quickly to yet another path (the one that is at the “headwaters” of the water course I like) and turned down that. Along the way there was a lot of bark and leaves strewn about from the heavy rainfall stripping off leaves and bark, as well as the “tide lines” marked at the kids playground and along the watercourse.

So it was a very interesting walk to see the effects of the rain and to see how all these clever watercourses and swales worked to keep the flooding down, increase groundwater infiltration, reduce erosion and all that good stuff (ooops had my hydrologist hat on for a sec) Muriel thought it was interesting for all the scents washed down with the torrent!

Good walking today Muriel… very interesting for both of us!