Rough ride to flood recovery

That was the third flood, family farmers, Andrew and Louise Burge had seen cover their country during October and November and they could only watch helplessly as flood waters swept away fences, cut gullies through the roads and caused major impacts to their merino sheep flocks.

"Our floods weren't from localised rainfall, the floods occurred from the Murray River and also the Goulburn River in Victoria and how both the major headwater storage dams on these rivers were managed" Mrs Burge said

"We spent three months preparing for risk of floods during this La Nina year," Mr Burge said.

"But we could not anticipate the extent of the third flood which occurred when the Murray Darling Basin Authority released more than the capacity of Sydney Harbour out of the Hume Dam to create airspace on top of a Murray River system already in major flood."

The Burge family had moved most of the stock to high ground, but the loss of some one thousand lambs has set their farming enterprise back.

They were able to drop feed to the sheep which were stranded on islands, but post floods, sheep became ill and the medium term affect of sheep loss and delayed joining, will mean reduced cash-flow.

"Taking account of their losses is a very emotional experience," Mr Burge said.

They would be completely devastated if they didn't put the future recovery program into perspective.

"We are just taking it one day at a time," he said.

"Otherwise the enormity would completely overwhelm us."

The damage, of those con-current floods will set the Burge family's work and production programs back by years, before their country is restored to full capacity.

"It is worse than a drought," Mr Burge said.

"In drought we can cope with feeding sheep and also where possible irrigate some pastures through the dry, but we can't cope with the complete loss of our pastures and the environmental damage these floods have caused.

Mrs Burge said the environmental loss, which included mass inundation of dead carp, drowned kangaroos and other wildlife, will take many years to replace.

"The environmental damage included the complete annihilation of four generations of Bathurst burr control," she said.

"When Andrew could get back onto the paddocks, he has boom sprayed as much of the weed growth as possible.

"I have spot sprayed on the motor bike, but I am completely overwhelmed by the scale of infestations, and the damage to the creek environments is appalling."

Mrs Burge and her husband are also overcome by the daily rounds of their properties, seeing the bare paddocks which will take many months to restore some grass cover again and years to fully recover

"During the floods we had to travel anywhere on their properties by boats and now after the water has gone down, it's still an incredibly difficult journey, " she said.

"We are trying to manage our finances, our workloads and trying to keep a check on our mental health.

"Everyday there are reminders of dead sheep hung up on fences, and every single moment as we walk around the paddock, we are seeing the damage on a continual basis."

To get some perspective of the enormity of the flood damage and the work ahead of them, in the main picture of Mr and Mrs Burge, the water would have been up his chest.

Eighty five percent of their property went under water, but they were able to harvest some grain in late December and into early February, which was better than they thought was possible.

It was surprising we got as much grain as we did, but there was still substantial losses and some downgrading of quality," Mr Burge said.

"We are feeding our sheep and we are preparing to sow shaftal clover into an irrigation block, and sow barley into flood affected dryland paddocks to get some quick feed."