2022 began with a very wet summer for us here in the Northern Rivers region of NSW. Rain throughout January and February culminating in a week of solid and torrential rain from the 22nd Feb to the 28th when massive floods, landslips, road collapes and deep valleys in the Byron hinterland becoming canyons of mud, boulders and trees, from what could be described as an avalanche of mud & a tsunami of water from above,
Locally here, high on a ridge, we have 3 road collapse landslips, two in sight of our driveway and the other heading down into the village. On the afternoon of Monday 28th, during a momentary break in the rain (silence) I heard a very strange sound/noise. I went out, but as it had stopped, I had no idea what had caused it. Later at dusk, when we drove up the driveway hill, and drove down to see the flooded bridge (into the village), we parked at top of driveway, walking down to find not one but two collapses of Limpinwood Road, the larger one in roughly the same place as 2017 Cyclone Debbie's heavy torrential flooding rains. As I stood there I recalled the strange sound from earlier, I reckon I heard the collapse.
The following day, we went into village to learn the news that Tyalgum Road had suffered a complete road closure with a massive landslip, from the hill above the road and all the way to the river. It is all kind of still in place, compared to roads like Reserve Creek Road, Tuntable Creek Road and others, where the road and under road masses, have completely slid out of view.