Yes, I reckon I've waited six months through a hot dry summer for this dam (and the top dam as well) to fill - watering the grass on the bank to establish it also helped empty the top dam, but it was definitely worth it. I walked around the bank again after work checking - yet again - for anything untoward, and can't believe how well the grass, especially the kikuyu and cooch are doing now the daytime temperature is cooler. I hope there's still 6-8 weeks of growing season left before winter, it won't completely cover the bank but maybe 60-70%, which will be a good start point when spring arrives.
Almost forgot to mention - yesterday I was able to drive our loader out of where it sank into that soft soil. Strangely, there was still water in the holes around both bogged wheels - couldn't have dried out much.
But I still think we were quite fortunate compared to what others went through - only a few miles from here a family's house was washed off its foundations and floated away. The Emergency Services boat crew evacuated the family from the roof only 15 minutes beforehand - absolute heroes.
We were really lucky to only have been flooded in for four days, no power for three days - running our generator about three hours three times a day. I could even link up our neighbour's house water-pump, refrigerator and freezer as well. We has things set up rather well. The other neighbours have their own generator, and anyone else is too far away to run cables. All we could do was contend with it and wait it out.
