We were supposed to be leaving Broome, Western Australia before Christmas and getting some 5000km to Victoria to celebrate with the family. Plans changed and we found a housesit with some beautiful dogs. Unfortunately during the housesit a tropical low (basically what you get before it's rated as a cyclone) came through and dumped 600mm of rain in a few days.
This is a huge amount for the area which is geographically rather flat and in turn filled the rivers and flooded the "plains". Essentially cutting Broome off from the rest of Australia both to the North and to the South.
Since we had no idea how long it would take for the floodwaters to receed we found another housesit and postponed leaving for another 3 weeks. Unfortunately for us those 3 weeks were not all dry and more rain came which hindered the drying and soaking up of the masses of water covering the roads. Whilst trucks and high clearance 4WD cars were allowed, our car was not. It did open to other vehicles with extreme caution shortly after but we were still worried given were not in a 4WD.
We ended up crashing at a friends for a few more nights and then decided to take the risk and drive through what remained of the floodways. There was lots more rain predicted in the coming weeks and we feared if we didn't leave now we wouldn't be able to until the dry season.
We packed up and started driving toward the highway. The first sign of floods outside of Broome was a small 10m patch of water over the road maybe 150mm deep. Not a drama but a sign of things to come. Given we are both from an area that doesn't really food but generally has bad fires it isn't something we have experienced before so were a little anxious as we drove up to the first floodway.
Approximately 200m of the road was under water, hard to gauge the depth as it's deeper on the sides than the middle. The biggest danger was the potholes that had formed from the flooding and the inability to see them under the flowing water.
There are 4 floodways before you exit the plains and the third is the deepest.
We made it through the first and the second with no problems.
When we arrived at the third one which was around 300m long it basically looked like the road disappeared into water. With water all along both sides the only real marker of where you were was the reflector poles along the sides of the road.
We watched a few other vehicles, all 4WD and trucks get through without much drama so we pulled up to the start and began rolling through slowly.
It was quite nerve wracking at times, especially near the end when it seemed to get deeper and deeper. The water was also flowing across the road at a reasonable speed which makes it worse.
We got through without much drama and the 4th was a breeze after that.
The only problem we really encountered was all the displaced wildlife. Because so much of their land has been flooded they have been forced into small areas, most close to the road. Even driving as carefully as I could we hit some frogs and lizards and 2 birds. I felt so bad but it was unavoidable and I guarantee we hit less than most of the vehicles that were zooming along...
In the end there was no damage to the car and we were quite relieved to get through with no dramas. It was an interesting experience, one that I hope we don't have to repeat until we have a better vehicle for the job.
We have now made it to Perth and are currently hanging around waiting for a mechanic on Monday and then will begin heading south and exploring the beautiful beaches and forests south of Perth.