The long awaited rains had begun to fall, bringing to an end a very long dry-season. Violent thunderstorms and cyclonic winds had accompanied the urgently needed rains. Lightning seemed to tear apart the darkened sky then pierce the distant horizon, while thunder crash and rolled amongst the storm clouds, vibrating through the homestead.
Kr’amis had watched the storms as they raged outside, the lightning illuminating the land and the trees, as they bent beneath the onslaught of the fierce winds. Kr’amis had also spent many hours in the stables, talking and stroking Zircon and the other horses, to calm them during the worst moments of the storms. Then during the day, clad in waterproofs and rubber boots, he had struggled alongside his father, fighting the buffeting winds as they tried to locate any of their livestock who might be in danger.
Out on the plains, after the first downpour; steam and then finally a crisp coolness arose from the ground. This replaced the shimmering heat haze, while the parched and cracked earth turned to thick red mud.
Torrential downpours or light showers fell during the following months. Along the coastline, across the rolling spinifex plains and into the ranges, until at last, up there high in the rugged ranges, the run-off began. Gradually the water made its way down little rocky gullies, increasing in strength along the watercourses and riverbeds, until finally it became a roaring, surging wall of water. The raging torrent took with it trees, branches, rocks and other debris which lay in its path, as it gushed through the deep and winding gorges, poured over and down rocky cliffs as thundering waterfalls, until it arrived out on the coastal plains. Here it swept along the riverbeds, flooding out across the land and then finally out into the ocean, turning it into a muddy brown colour.