When water on the Goulburn River floodplain stranded 400 of his sheep on a sandhill almost two weeks ago, Undera farmer Tim Ashcroft had to get creative.
His farm between Shepparton and Echuca in Victoria's north has been almost entirely inundated with floodwater after torrential rain in mid-October.
Mr Ashcroft had access to hay from disaster relief charity Need For Feed, but had no way of getting it to his sheep. So he devised a plan.
First, he boats up the Goulburn River to a neighbouring property, collects one round bale of hay at a time, and then boats back to his farm.
He then has to drag his boats across land with a tractor, before boating the last leg of the journey to his hungry sheep.
He does this six-hour round trip every day, and has no idea how long it will be before the water subsides.
Caught off-guard by floodwater
Mr Ashcroft said he was familiar with how the area had flooded in the past, and didn't think the sheep would be stranded.
"The area they were in is generally OK, but there's a channel called the Bray Road channel and they sandbagged that right up, and that pushed the water right back toward Undera and back-flooded my farm too," he said.
"So the sheep ended up trapped on this little sandhill and by the time it happened the water was too deep to get them off."
Initially, there was grass on the sandhill for the sheep to eat, but rising waters, and 400 mouths on an area a little larger than a hectare, meant that was soon exhausted.
Time to get creative
Mr Ashcroft had access to donated hay from the Lions Australia disaster relief charity Need for Feed, but had no way of getting it to his stranded sheep, with the floodwater too deep to get a vehicle through.
So he came up with a plan for a long boat journey to collect it from his neighbour's farm by boat, and return on a three-leg journey over water, land, and water again.
"I've got my tinnie and a little punt and I start at my place on the Goulburn River, he said.
"And I go down the river and up Wells Creek and I met these two great local farmers, Brad and Kyle Muir, who bring hay down for me," he said.
"They halve a hay bale, we put half in the punt, half in my boat, I go back down Wells Creek, back up the Goulburn River about five kilometres.
"Then I connect the two boats to a tractor and drag them across 500 metres of land, put the boats back in and continue across water to the sandhill.
"I get to the sandhill, take out the hay, drop off some lick blocks for the sheep, then reverse the process.
"That's how I'm doing it, every day. It takes about six hours all up."
Feeding lambs by hand
The stranded sheep had lambs at foot, and with limited feed and stressful conditions, Mr Ashcroft decided to take the lambs off and feed them by hand.
"So when I finish getting the hay to the ewes, I come back in the afternoon and feed the lambs, and that's practically my day," he said.
"But you don't have a choice, you just do what you can do, and I'm lucky I've got people like Brad and Kyle helping me."
And Mr Ashcroft said it was all worth it when he approached that little sandhill each day.
"The sheep love me, they hear the boat coming across and they're waiting for their food," he said.
"I just get up each day and do the best I can and hopefully soon the water drops.
"I'm doing fine, there are a lot of people worse off than me in the world."
