by Patricia Gardiner
The fire trails that Araluen Road residents have had to traverse for the last 13 months, due to the landslide 23 km from Moruya, has now succumbed to its own landslide and road collapse. The steep narrow section skirting Mt Wandera is now unusable/unfixable/closed.
Council have told us we may be able to use the new bypass by this afternoon. A nearby resident has advised that a 4WD would be necessary but that a donkey would be safer and more reliable.
The detour around the new McGregors Creek bridge is now flooded and probably washed away. Work was done this morning to finish the approaches so the bridge can now be utilised.
(above) The detour now closed, and the new bridge is open.
The many slip sites along the road, delineated by steel droppers and pretty little flags for the past 13 months, have undergone further slippage with new ones now formed.
(above) Steel droppers with pretty flags collapsed with the road near the Blue Pinch.
(above)Approximately 1 metre in road width has been washed away down the creek near the fire shed.
These photos were taken along a 10km stretch of Araluen Road. The road was blocked about at about the 35km mark by a landslip and small landslide onto the road.(below)
As at 2.30 pm Friday 10th Dec, the Deua River was 7.1 metres and rising at the Lagoon – 30 km west of Moruya.
‘The Lagoon’ has been an official rainfall recording station for the BOM since 1981.
The annual rainfall at this station for this year, so far, is 1,723.8 mm.
This is the highest annual rainfall since 1988, which had 1,491.5 mm.
The lowest was in 2019 with 487 mm followed by the Black Summer bushfires.
The average annual rainfall is approximately 1,006 mm.
