Receding Flood

I decided to have alook and see what the rains had brought on Tuesday after work. I should have gone on Monday or the weekend and the water would have been much higher at both spots.

Yarra River: Fitzsimons Lane

Directly underneath Fitzsimons Lane. The things dangling over
the water are gates used by kyakists (I have no idea what the right
word is) in competition. There was a fair bit of wet, very slippery
mud overa meter above the water line, so it had been higher.

This is the view looking upstream from an observation lookout just near the carpark.

Plenty River: Lower Plenty

Taken at Lower Plenty. It was obvious that the river had been much higher due to all the flattened grass and mud everywhere. Today when driving over the bridge I noticed the river was much lower again, well inside it's defined banks.

The view downstream towards the Yarra.

Upstream.

Once again there is a lot of wet sticky mud.

Looking upstream under the Lower Plenty Road/Main Road bridge.

Looks like there has been a lot of water through here recently.

This is the old bridge, no longer open to road traffic but used by
pedestrians and cyclists. I took the first two photos from here.

To get to school I had to cross this river, but further upstream in Greensborough. It flooded on a number of occasions, often above the bridge that was most convenient meaning a long detour. In year 12 a flood actually wiped out the bridge. The bridge was about 1.5 metres wide with steel I beams and a concrete surface and steel cable hand rails. There must have been a few trees floating down to take that out.

In the end it took the council about 6 months to build a new one, meaning I had to go the long way to school for far too long. The failing of the bridge is that it is too low. In that section the Plenty River has very steep banks. When it floods it fills very quickly, and for this reason, all the other bridges over the plenty river in this area are much higher, most actually arch over. For some reason the new bridge (now 11 years old) was built in the same spot and is almost identical to the old one. I wonder if it has been destroyed again. Something to check out on the weekend...