In the two days until 9am on Friday Goulburn Airport Weather Station recorded 45.2 mm in its gauge, 15.8mm to 9am on Thursday and a further 29.4mm  over the next 24 hours.

 The Goulburn TAFE manual weather station observations were a little higher with 18mm in the gauge at 9am on Thursday and a further 34mm at 9am on Friday bringing the total to 52mm.

At Yarra, Lois Apps estimated they had received about 30 millimetres to lunch time on Thursday. The dams were now in a much better state, however very little had soaked in. But they were hopeful that with continued rain across the next few days they might get a little more soaking into the rock-hard earth.

Mrs Apps said they had de-stocked back to breeding stock last year and had been hand feeding cattle since February and their sheep since September.

“This drought seems worse than the 1980s,” she said.

“When it started they had hay in their sheds but this time because the rain, over the past five years, fell at the wrong time, they had no feed to speak of in the sheds. The price of feed that is available has skyrocketed.”

Water had become an issue for some properties in the Bungonia area and they had reduced their stocking rates accordingly.

Phillip Broadhead recorded 8.5mm overnight and some good falls since. He was pleased that they had not copped the usual gully rakers that frequently followed a dry spell and they had some vegetation to help hold the topsoil. 

Bill Dobbie, Lumley Park, Bungonia, had recorded about 15mm. He is running about 10,000 lambs and ewes and the rain means he will be able to cut back on the supplementary feeding. 

He was concerned the hot dry winds had blown some of the topsoil away but rain several weeks ago had promoted some growth in the grasslands. He was hoping the growth would hold the soil together.

Mr Dobbie had also planted some summer crops and this rain was most welcome. He said there was a fair amount of native wildlife also trying to feed on his pastures as well as deer that had gradually encroached on his property.

He told The Post that deer and wildlife posed a considerable hazard to motorists and the reduced speed limit on the road was warranted due to the large amount of unpredictable wildlife that found its way onto the roads looking for feed. The rain on Thursday brought his total for the couple of days to just over 40mm, a little short of the amount that fell in Goulburn, but most welcome.

Just down the road from Goulburn, near Wakefield Park, Phil Sykes and several other farmers have been trying to harvest canola, barley and wheat. The 30mm of rain Mr Sykes recorded at the Pelican Sheep Station gauge, has just about brought harvesting to a standstill.

He was pleased to see water flowing into his tanks but not when they wanted to harvest. He called it “the best rain all year at the worst time. 

 “If we get too much more, the grain will sprout and it will be useless,” he said.

Bob Blay at Myrtleville recorded 51mm in the rain event to 7pm on Thursday night.

 “Myrtle Creek is flowing well and I would expect that the rain would have soaked into the soil fairly well as we had some good rain a couple of weeks ago that greened up the place and gave us some good ground cover,” Mr Blay said. “We had been hand feeding the sheep and cattle all through winter but we did not de-stock. Out here we don’t have dams but rely on the creeks.

 “With this rain we are looking fairly positive about the months ahead.”

 On Friday morning another fairly substantial storm delivered a further 7.5mm into Mr Blay’s gauge, bringing the total since Wednesday night to 58.5mm.

 Along the Taralga Road on Friday morning most dams seemed full to over flowing and water was sheeting down the sides of some hills and even small gullies had noticeable flows of fresh run off water.

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