Rain welcomed by CQ graziers

LARGE rain falls have been welcomed across Queensland with some graziers seeing more than 200mm.

Nigel Simmons has seen 265mm of rain fall in the last week. Picture: Facebook

LARGE rainfalls have been welcomed across Queensland with some graziers seeing more than 200mm.

Nigel Simmons’ 24,281 hectare cattle station near Julia Creek received 265mm within the past seven days.

“It started last Monday night and it wasn’t much, so I was a bit worried, but the ground is very wet now,” he said.

Puddles of water in the grass at Clarafield Station after 265mm of rain. Picture: Facebook

“I haven’t seen rain like this since 2012, when (we had) our last really good wet season.”

The rainfall has caused one their dams to overflow.

“We went for a walk to the one about three kilometres from the house and it’s pretty amazing to see it full,” he said.

“On our way we saw little fish on the ground which, I assume, had tried to swim up from the dam … I’ve never seen that before.”

Mr Simmons said while their season wasn’t terrible, they started to feel the strain of dry weather in November.

“They started slipping away so we began supplement feeding them and offloading a bit,” he said.

“We actually had some cattle booked to go to sale this week but that won’t be happening now.”

As some of their roads are on black soil, it will take a few days of sunlight before they can drive anywhere.

“Supplies wise we are good, we stock up because you never know if something like this will happen,” he said.

Mr Simmons was grateful for the falls, but also hoping for follow-up rain.

“It’s only the first rain we’ve had for the year,” he said.

“If we can get some more in a few weeks and a few weeks after that, it’ll help bring the feed up.”