Julia creek's waterfront views

When Gympie girl Michelle Huth accepted a job on a cattle station, in the heart of the outback, she knew it would be an adventure.

When Gympie girl Michelle Huth accepted a job on a cattle station, in the heart of the outback, she knew it would be an adventure but never in her wildest dreams did she think her first three weeks on the job would be spent surrounded by water.

Michelle spoke to The Gympie Times via phone from her cattle station homestead on Thursday, she has spent nearly three weeks stuck inside the house as flood waters inched toward the home.

Wensley Station is situated south of Julia Creek and record rain in the region has turned the normally barren outback landscape into a massive in land ocean.

Michelle only commenced her employment as a governess/jillaroo three weeks ago and Michelle's mother Alison Huth accompanied her on the long journey to Julia Creek for her first days on the job.

Unfortunately the pair could only make it as far as Richmond because flood waters had cut the road.

So they booked into a motel, while Michelle's new bosses organised a chopper to come and pick her up.

“It was my first time in a helicopter the flight was a buzz,” Michelle said.

“It was a two seater- there was only enough room for me and a weeks worth of clothes,” she said.

The hour and a half long flight took Michelle over a vast inland sea, something she says she will always remember.

“As we flew over the floodwaters you could see little islands with cattle standing on them everywhere,” Michelle said.

“It was pretty interesting, everywhere was just water with lots of fences knocked down.”

When the nineteen year old landed at the station it was then she realised she was alone.

Her bosses had been cut off in Cloncurry and the chopper had to fly back to pick them up one by one.

“I had to wait by my self for about two and a half hours. And my car is still in Richmond.”

Finally Michelle's bosses arrived, but so did more rain. The constant downpours had seen water rise and fall on the station and on the day we spoke to Michelle they we in the middle of moving out of the homestead and into the men's quarters which was on higher ground.

“The water is still rising and we are moving everything just to be on the safe side,” Michelle said.

She said the house had been surrounded by water most of the time except for a few days when the rain slowed.

“We had a couple of days when it was dryer and we got out to check on the fences. We have at least 25 kilometres of fencing to fix . The deepest water is over my hips and the shallowest is ankle depth.”

The ex James Nash student said the water isn't metres deep, but because the land is so flat it covers everything.

“It makes the Gympie floods look small,” she said.

 

CRAIG WARHURST

Originally published as Julia creek's waterfront views