i awake early this morning due to very distressing factors... now granted not as scary as my wake up call several weeks ago, but unpleasant none the less...
early this morning i woke up soaking wet, and lying in a steadily growing puddle of water...
as my brain started to wake up at the early hour of 8am, i was shocked to realize that the hills of the dell all around me were alive with the constant and chaotic movement of tiny waterfalls... which i assure you normally aren't here!
all these pouring right into my territory of the dell... what was causing this i wondered?
i set off immediately to find out as i still wanted to sleep!
sleepily stumbling my up to the top of the dell the WHOLE botanic garden had been transformed into a water park... of sorts anyway...new micro waterfalls were EVERYWHERE to be found. the pathways were under giant puddles.
the rain that has been going since yesterday is STILL going as hard as ever... at that moment i didn't make the connection what this none stop rain had with the submerging of my home... all i could think of was to grab my umbrella!
planning on finding ben the gardener and see if the garden had something to do with my new aquatic home i made a startling realization crossing a bridge across the leith (though i still want to call it an aquaduck)...
it was full!
normally there's a tiny stream going through the garden... right then a small river was going through!
well that solved one thing. i had for the most part figured out why my home was flooded... the rest of the garden was too!
but what of the rest of dunedin?
i only had to venture out of the garden a block to find my answer...so it turns out if it rains for 2 days straight really hard with no break it floods after a while...
there were all sorts of official type people out and about looking into the situation. from campus security, to police, and even the fire department (which shows how crazy things were... the fire department dealing with the opposite of their mandated element!)
the reason they were out and about. the leith was a raging river... normally it's just a calm little stream!
the water was nearly up to all the bridges... suddenly i realized i lived across a bridge... if the water made it up there what then?
crossing the bridge back into the garden i was a little freaked by just how much more raging that river had gotten in the 30 minutes i'd been checking it out!
at this rate the bridges might get shut down... leaving me stranded in the garden!
more to the point my home was completely soaked out... normally the forest was good enough protection from the elements, but now it was more like living in a swimming pool. i needed somewhere nice and dry to retreat to and wait out the floods, but where?
suddenly i had an idea!
heading down the leith i aimed for salmond hall. home of not only my great friend owain, but also my legal guardian craig... it was the perfect solution!i could hang out with owain till the crisis went away, and if things got worse i'd be close to my official emergency contact craig! it's a good thing all the paperwork i've had to fill out in new zealand has included reminders about who i should contact in an emergency...
walking along the leith i couldn't get over just how full it was even here towards salmond!
this is what the leith looked like last time i'd paid much attention to it... way back when i first sought out craig during my countdown to deportation...
see the leith is normally just a tiny little trickle!
there was just one last obstacle i had to overcome to get to the nice safe dry haven of salmond... that was a giant lake that had formed on the street RIGHT in front of salmond!
loch salmond was covered the street from sidewalk to sidewalk, and was at most half a metre deep!
couldn't go around it...
couldn't go over it...
was going to have to go through it...
man that was cold and wet... the good news though it only lasted a couple minutes. right after that i was in the nice dry interior of salmond.
the plan hangout here till the flood goes away. i have work off at moment as the museum is closed due to the flooding anyways. so i'm going to enjoy this slight hick up in the stability.
it's flooding outside what could possibly go worse?
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