Memories of losing cattle in big rain events are resurfacing on lower Cape York Peninsula, where ex-Tropical Cyclone Jasper has been dumping a power of rain.
Karlene Shephard and husband Roy manage two properties, Welcome Station and Crocodile Station, between Lakeland and Laura, and have just gone from fighting bushfires to worrying about the ability of their stock to withstand an extended rain period.
On Friday morning they'd recorded 270mm and Ms Shephard said the rain was still constant.
She said they'd lost a fair bit of country at Welcome to bushfires that had come out of Lakefield National Park in November, and were preparing to backburn to contain another fire, but "Jasper fixed that".
They run 5500 Brahman-cross cattle, roughly 2500 of them breeders at Welcome, and the younger ones at Crocodile, which has more timber cover.
"I don't know how the cows will go - we were taking hay over and feeding lick," Ms Shephard said.
"The rain started on Wednesday night, has been going all Thursday and now today - they've been standing shivering in it that long.
"We cant cross any rivers at the moment so we'll just have to wait and see."
Ms Shephard added that the weather conditions reminded her of similar circumstances around 10 years ago when they were out feeding cattle on Christmas Day, when a cyclone made itself felt.
"We did lose some cattle then - a lot of them got rain scald, especially weaners," she said. "We've got them in timbered paddocks this time so hopefully that'll be better for them."
Glen Shephard hadn't received a huge amount of rain at Lilyvale Station further up the Peninsula Development Road, but was concerned for the four decks of weaners sent down to blocks at Malanda and Mena Creek near Innisfail just before the cyclone began making itself felt.
"We had 44mm last night and 40mm again today," he said on Friday. "That's plenty, considering the condition of the cattle - it was very dry here before this rain."
The more immediate concern for him was that his cows had calved early this year and so he had lots of bobby calves on the ground, adding to the demands on the cows, and for the young cattle in the path of the rain depression.
"The block at Malanda is an old dairy so my wife Sue put 70 head in there - we're hoping that will save most of them," he said.
"She says it's still raining heavily down there, and there's been no power for three days.
"If we woke up tomorrow and it was a nice, sunny day, we'd be really happy."
He said Musgrave, 45 kilometres away from him at Lilyvale, had recorded 300mm of rain, saying they were very fortunate not to have had that amount.
Mr Shephard has lived at Lilyvale all his life and said the cyclone was unusual in that it was lingering despite not being part of a monsoon trough.
"A cylone on its own usually comes and goes - if it's in a monsoon trough, that's when it normally hangs around," he said.
Sally Gall
Based at Blackall, CW Qld, where I've raised a family, run Merino sheep and beef cattle, and helped develop a region - its history, tourism, education and communications. Get in touch at 0427 575 955 if you've got a story idea for me.
Based at Blackall, CW Qld, where I've raised a family, run Merino sheep and beef cattle, and helped develop a region - its history, tourism, education and communications. Get in touch at 0427 575 955 if you've got a story idea for me.
