Just three months after preparing to harvest one of their best crops, Tess and Andrew Herbert are facing years and millions of dollars of work to help them get back to where they were.
They think their paddock, on the banks of the Mandagery Creek at Eugowra, west of Orange, would have yielded about $400,000 of canola.
The region was already badly flooded, with the Lachlan River having peaked at a near-record height downstream at Forbes, and thousands of hectares of crops and pastures abandoned to the inundation.
But, Ms Herbert said, their canola paddock "looked beautiful".
The canola was windrowed on Friday, November 11, but what happened the following Monday was previously unheard of.
A devastating storm that weekend dumped more than 100 millimetres of rain in a matter of hours.
The Mandagery Creek, a key tributary of the Lachlan, broke its banks, releasing a flood that tore through farms, wiped out crops and left the small, picturesque town of Eugowra unrecognisable.
"My kids are sixth generation on this place and there's no historical records that indicate anything like this has ever happened before," Ms Herbert said.
Two people died in the township and the force and speed of the flooding meant dozens had to be airlifted to safety.
There has also been a significant, widespread and long-lasting impact on agriculture in the region.
The industry is a major employer, from the golden canola fields to the fat cattle on the wide plains downstream.
Ms Herbert and her husband estimate the damage to their cropping, livestock and feedlot business will cost millions and set them back years.
Fifty kilometres of fences have been ruined, roads washed away, stockyards wrecked and sheep drowned.
The floodwater flowed down into the Lachlan River, and along the way met record-breaking releases from the Wyangala Dam.
That water was headed towards Forbes where dairy farmer Alex Bayley had no choice but to move her 320-head milking herd onto the public road next to her property.
Almost the entire place was under water and road access was impossible.
Only a few months after muddy brown floodwater suffocated the soil, this paddock is being cut for silage.
For 16 days trucks could not get in to pick up the milk, forcing her to dump 85,000 litres into the floodwater.
"It was a bit disheartening tipping the milk out each day or every second day. We'd sort of hang on to it as long as we could, hoping that they'd get in."
The milk processor paid for every drop and recovery is now underway.
A flourishing sorghum crop is being cut for silage and should provide around 400 bales, which will help fill the gaps of the destroyed pastures.
Worst in living memory
The village of Bedgerabong, west of Forbes, is familiar with flooding.
Locals had already been semi-isolated for weeks when Landline visited Melissa and Tom Brown in October.
"I think we thought that was the worst then, but what was to come was just unbelievable," Ms Brown said.
Their wheat and lucerne were not salvageable, but they did strip some canola.
The floodwater sucked the oxygen from the soil and the only plants that are growing in what is left behind are weeds.
They will spend weeks ploughing to bring some life back to it, even though they usually try to minimise tillage.
However, Ms Brown draws strength from the positives.
"The trees do really well ... there's the bird life and the native life that it brings in and so many frogs.
"You've got to always be looking for positives because otherwise it can be very overwhelming."
Country still drowning
Further downstream lies Condobolin.
The landscape is broad and flat, and the water spreads a long way.
Bernadette Crouch is one who knows that too well — her family's livestock and cropping farm has been flood-affected since the end of 2021.
Consistent rainfall meant it never dried out, and access in and out slowly became more dangerous and difficult, so Ms Crouch and her husband moved into town in August.
When they were finally able to come home after the major flood peak passed in November, they had to use boats and a tractor to get down their driveway.
The house had survived by mere centimetres, as had a couple of old sheep who had climbed onto the highest point to survive.
"We had a little party of rams living on the deck that did quite a lot of damage," Ms Crouch said.
"It took a long time to clean up and get rid of the smell. It was like a little shearing shed when we got home."
Now they are back home, the sun is shining and their sheep have returned from agistment — but their flood is far from over.
Water is still pouring out of a brimming wetland into the creek that winds through their farm, spilling over their paddocks.
"The land is slowly starting to rise above the water," she said.
She does not expect to be able to drive a car, other than the side-by-side vehicle onto her property, until April.
"We've got a long road ahead of us yet, we're not out of the woods yet. We've got a long way to go."
