By Ian Beeck | posted on August 13, 2020
It is as long as the Petronas Towers in Malaysia are tall, up to 10m wide and more than 1.5m deep in places – welcome to the Albany Canyon.
This natural phenomena was discovered on Monday morning following heavy showers at Millbrook by farmer Stephen ‘Snaggers’ Tuffley.
He said about 140ml of rain had fallen in less than two days but could not fathom the momentum and power of the water movement to shift earth as it had.
Snaggers has been farming for 64 years but had never seen anything like this in his time.
“It must have been a cloud burst that caused this,” he said.
“I could maybe understand if there was a clay base but also it is not a catchment area.
“But the raw power to cause this … it’s hard to comprehend.”
Snaggers previously farmed in Nyabing all of his life before moving to Albany, or “God’s country” as he calls it, three years ago.
He said he would be contacting earthmoving companies on how best to rectify the damage as he needs the land for rotation for pig huts that he leases to a local company.
His 1000-acre farm is otherwise sheep-based.
The canyon is deemed an act of God and thus not covered by insurance.
But the laconic Snaggers is taking it all in his stride, with jokes about SnaggerWorld opening up featuring a leisurely ride down the Albany Canyon.
