John Routh, Task Force member

I decided I needed to see the river during a heavy rainstorm. So braving the elements and getting completely soaked, I bicycled up to Craigleigh Gardens and down Milkmen's Lane to see what was happening. This was about 7:30 p.m. At the bottom of the ravine, water was boiling out of a manhole and filling the wet depression on the north side of the path for as much as 100 metres west up the path.

Moving east along the path beside the Bayview Avenue cloverleaf I checked out the Binscarth wetland. This was completely filled and overflowing across the bike path towards Bayview.

I bicycled over to the Brickworks. The inlet pipe was barely flowing and it appeared to have silted up. Closer to the buildings, water was pouring out of the side of the hill from what is probably a leak in the old Mud Creek CSO. This is seriously eroding the path and pushing alot of silt into the closest pond.

I then cycled over to the main bike path. Next to Helliwell's Hill the river was already flowing right up to the lip of the riverbank. Chester Springs Marsh on both sides of the river was completely full. As I made my way down the path I came to the tunnel that goes underneath the railway (the frog/cricket sound tunnel). There was about 25 cm of water flowing into it from a gully on the DVP side. Seeing as I was already so wet it didn't matter, I cycled through and made it to the other side. When I reached the footbridge that crosses the river the water was only about 3 feet below the bottom of the bridge.

Just north of the Riverdale footbridge water was starting to flood the bikepath. I was able make it to the bottom of the footbridge but the path south of the bridge was impassable. I went up the stairs at this point and went home.

It is now about 11:30 p.m. and still raining. I don't think it will be as bad as last May's deluge but it looked pretty close. All in all I was impressed by the force of the river and have gained some new respect for what it can do.