Narromine $2.00 incl GST
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Thursday, September 29, 2022
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Aerobatic action at state championships
Fire destroys Trangie home STORY: PAGE 15
STORY: PAGE 9
All aboard the Dolly Trolley: the Dolly Festival is here! By SHARON BONTHUYS ONE more sleep, peeps, and the Dolly Festival is here. Narromine will transform into Dollymine for the weekend so be prepared for the town to be painted in pink, lots of sparkles, big wigs, high heels and a whole lotta “y’all” echoing down the street. There will be Dollys and Kennys everywhere but if you happen to see a stray Elvis, just tell him he needs to travel a bit further south for his festival. Nicely, of course. It all kickstarts on Friday night with the G-rated animated rom-com “Gnomeo and Juliet” for the kidlets down at Payten Park. Bring a blanket, bring food if you like although you can buy on site too, but most importantly, bring yourself. Don’t be afraid to sing along to the catchy tunes and look out for Dolly Gnome, voiced by none other than our own Queen of Country, Dolly Parton, in a rip-snortin’ cameo in the groovy movie. If that doesn’t float your boat and you’re looking for something a bit more entertaining, head on up to the Courthouse Hotel for some whip-crackin’ karaoke. Continued page 7
Narromine Jets end season on a high STORY & PHOTOS: PAGE 23
Central west flooding crisis By SHARON BONTHUYS MUCH of the Narromine Shire is settled beneath a blanket of water and has been for months. How thick that blanket is changes every week, but ultimately it depends on the rain that just keeps on coming. Unlike our cousins on the coast in communities like Lismore which completely disappeared beneath horrendous flooding earlier this year, out here in the central west the situation with water hasn’t been quite that apparent to many of those not personally impacted. If you’re a town dweller and you aren’t really paying attention as you drive by on the bitumen road that might have a pothole or two, you may miss the shimmer of water across the fields. It doesn’t have to be deep water to do damage to prime agricultural land. How long it stays and the damage it causes to crops and vegetation are the big issues. Landholders have not been able to get much of a break for almost a year. The frustrating regularity of the rainfall, and the amount of rain, has kept the ground wet for much of this year, impacting some property owners’ ability to harvest, to sow and to manage livestock. These are the people who put food on the table and clothes on the backs of Australians, and they’re hurting in so many ways. Because rural school buses often aren’t equipped to drive on dirt roads rendered impassable by continuing rain,
The driveway and front paddock at the Darcy property near Tullamore last week. PHOTOS: RICHARD AND DIANE DARCY.
many rural families have had to make long treks to the bitumen every day so their children can get an education. And some days when the bitumen roads are waterlogged after heavy rain, the buses can’t make it through at all. This disrupts children’s education. Farming families are also bearing the brunt of damage to vehicles from constantly driving through water over roads that are rapidly deteriorating due to the elements. Last week a five-year-old boy drowned when his family’s Hilux was swept away in floodwater at the Genaren Creek crossing on The McGrane Way, south-west of Narromine.
With landholders in the surrounding area reporting massive rainfall from the prolonged heavy rain event on Wednesday, September 21, a fresh round of road closures was announced in several LGAs last week just prior to that tragic event. Unable to handle the volume of water, inland waterways naturally spread out and consume the land in all directions. Richard Darcy lives on 5,500 acres 70 kilometres southwest of Narromine, not far from Tullamore. His family’s two mixed farming properties receive floodwater from Bullock Creek and tributaries connected to it including Lightning Creek, Leg of Mut-
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ton Creek and others. The ongoing rain events have impacted his family’s cropping operations substantially. They grow wheat, barley, oats, and canola and run Dorper sheep. It has been a difficult time for Richard and his family, whose farming operations have been significantly hampered. “It’s pretty hard on everyone, and on the family, totally,” Richard said. “You can’t do things, you can’t go anywhere. You’ve got to tighten your belt because you don’t have the income coming in. All of that has an effect, of course.” Continued page 11