A week after a major flood inundated a Gundagai's racecourse in southern New South Wales, locals have banded together to get the site ready for a major meet.
Key points:
- Gundagai's race track was inundated last week during major flooding on Murrumbidgee River
- After a mammoth clean-up, the track's now been given the all clear for a major race meet
- Other sporting clubs weren't so lucky, with the cricket club not expecting any home games soon
The Gundagai race track sits adjacent to the Murrumbidgee River, which last Wednesday peaked at the major flood level of 9.7m.
While the town — nearly 400km south west of Sydney — was not flooded, the flat plain where almost of all the town's sporting facilities are based was under water for about three days.
"Probably 65 to 75 per cent of the track went under in varying depths, from 20-30 centimetres to probably 1.3 metres," Gundagai-Adelong Race Club president Michael Crowe said.
"It actually went over the top of the running rail in many spots and knocked hundreds of metres of rail down."
The flood could not have come at a worse time for the race club, which hosts the $500,000, two-day Snake Gully Cup each November.
The annual event sees thousands of racegoers descend on the small Hume Highway town and provides a major boost to the local economy.
Thumbs up from Racing NSW
Mr Crowe said the track's location on the flood plain meant the water drained from the site quickly and by Sunday, Racing NSW had given the go ahead for this week's race meet.
He described the scene left behind by the floodwaters as "carnage", but said there was an enormous community effort to get the track cleaned up.
"In Gundagai, when a job needs to be done to get something on, people just turn up," he said.
Mr Crowe said he was confident that despite the conditions, the track wouldn't even be rated "heavy", when racing started on Friday.
"The track would be a six at this point in time, further around it's a little bit wetter — but there's every chance that front straight will be a three and it's improving every day," he said.
"To see how much water's gone through, you would not believe that we're actually going to run this race meeting — but we're going to.
No cricket until at least Christmas
Other sporting clubs in town haven't been so lucky.
The Gundagai District Cricket Club's turf and synthetic wickets were flooded, as were its storage and dressing sheds.
Vice-president Craig Hargraeves said he hadn't been able to survey the grounds yet due to access road damage.
"The pitches will be carrying a fair bit of silt from this flood, because it was a slow moving flood," he said.
"With mud and silt you want to try and get there as quick as you can because it's going to set and dry out, which it makes it even more difficult to deal with."
Mr Hargraeves said he didn't expect the club to play any home games until after Christmas, potentially even the New Year.
"We've actually had to sit down with the other teams in the competition and transfer our home games and swap them for away games," he said.
Mr Hargreaves was confident though that, like the race club, when it was time to start cleaning up, he wouldn't be short of helpers.
"There's not one person in our town that hasn't been affected by these floods and I think it's a testament to our community to how it's been handled," he said.
"Everyone has just got everyone's back and it doesn't matter what club you're a part of, you help each other to get it moving forward."
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