Outback couple count their blessings after downpour cuts off Moorabie Station near NSW-SA border By Daniel Keane, Monday January 19, 2015 - 18:58 EDT In outback New South Wales, on the edge of the rolling dunes of the Strzelecki Desert near the South Australian border, Nick and Susan Pritchard feel like they are living on an island - which they are, in a way. Their home at Moorabie Station, 230 kilometres north of Broken Hill, has been cut off by floodwaters after a tropical low pressure system dumped 280 millimetres of rain over the area early last week. Its a wonderful situation to be in, to sit here and look at water out of every window of your house, Mrs Pritchard said. Its good for the soul. The cattle and sheep station covers 73,500 hectares and is surrounded by lakes and creeks, which are usually dry. But aerial photographs taken by Mr Pritchard from a neighbours light aircraft reveal an outback oasis, with green shoots springing up from the red earth. Weve had two years of fairly tough drought conditions so this rains very, very welcome, he said. I was talking to a neighbour this morning and hed just been flying and he said it looks like a golf course down there and it does. Its quite amazing. I think weve probably got 12 months or more water now which is great. Itll save us running bores continually. SES drops supplies but couple may remain marooned The couple took over the station in 2012, after Mr Pritchard decided to quit his career as an engineer for the car industry and pursue his desert dream. Its been a lifelong ambition of mine to run a property and certainly cattle, he said. I spent some time as a young bloke jackarooing and wanting to go cattle farming and then we made a decision to buy. The couples vegetable garden and store room are keeping them going, but they have not been forgotten by emergency services. The SES did a drop to us the other day which was sensational so we got some essential supplies and some fresh fruit and veg, Mr Pritchard said. Weve got a store room. Its like a little mini-supermarket. The freezers are full, Mrs Pritchard said. Quite a few of our neighbours have been able to get out to the Tibooburra road and get south, but itll be some time before we can get out north, south, east or west. - ABC
Posted on: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 08:37:26 +0000
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