More rain today, in Robertson

Robbo is a wet place, but today it lived up to its reputation. Here are the Sassafras trees across my driveway, seen through the rain.
Yesterday we reported 39mm of rain, and the "unofficial progress score, since 9:00am" of 18mm on the "NSW Daily Rainfall Bulletin" (for the South Coast). Despite its prosaic name, this site actually shows rain recorded over the last 7 days site, plus (for some stations only) rainfall since 9:00am. The "progress scores" are updated several times per day. In fact, I believe that "progress score" understates our rain today. It was the heaviest rain I have experienced in the last 6 months, (from memory). If we got 39mm yesterday, I would expect the total today to exceed that.

The shot here is "focussed short" to show the sheets of rain coming down. This is how one looks at the rain as you step out into it, to run to the car (or else, stand on the front porch, and decide that it is more sensible to wait a while, before going to down the village).Yesterday there was a dramatic sky down the Valley below my house. Dark lowering clouds filled Kangaroo Valley, and the valleys between the various flat-topped sandstone plateaux are clearly silhouetted. You can see the clouds filling the valley leading back up from Kangaroo Valley (to the left of the image), trailing back to the right, towards the top of the Barrengarry Creek Valley, where Belmore Falls is located.
Here is my current favourite shot of the large Melianthus major plant below my house. Its spectacular large, deeply divided leaves collect beads of water in the deep grooves. Although this photo was taken at a distance from the plant, it clearly shows the beading I am talking about. Click on the image to see it in a much larger version, as I have uploaded it as a larger than normal image (because it is worth it). Each large leaf (called a "compound" leaf) is about 450mm long, and 300mm or more wide. The red flowering bud at the top of the image, will develop with a series of long brown tubular flowers inside the reddish bracts. Honeyeaters, notably the Lewins Honeyeater and the Brush Wattlebird love these flowers.These leaves always remind me of my Mother, who had a wonderful pair of "pinking shears" which would cut cloth with a zig-zag pattern, just like the edges of these wonderful leaves. According to Wikipedia, the name might be derived from the edges of the traditional Carnation (Dianthus) flowers which are known as "Pinks". Makes sense to me. "Pinks" are very ornate flowers, with fringed edges to their flowers (click to see image). They were extremely popular as cottage garden flowers in the Victorian era - more common than one might assume today, when the small flowers are discounted because of the modern, hybrid Florist Carnations.