My resolution to write every day has not quite slipped to writing every week, and I might even finish the wedding story.
The brothers return from the North Bank road. They tell us it is fine to drive on. We may need to put a few signs up directing people, and there are one or two places where water is lapping over the road, but it is not impassable. The locals all smile reassurance, but Bruce and I take Nerine aside and suggest that we should start establishing a plan B just in case.
Easier said than done. We are in a strange town, we need a wedding venue and a reception venue to accommodate eighty people in five hours time. The Gleniffer Minister can get access to the Bellingen Uniting Church with no difficulty, and is happy to arrange it. We drive around to check it out - St Stevens Methodist Church is one of those delightful rural churches. It is a tiny red-brick jewel of gorgeous proportions with a high pitched roof and steeple all timber and tradition inside and of course some time during the seventies, some long-haired, guitar playing pastor who thought we should get 'with it' convinced the parishioners that rather than repair the roof on their old church they should build a squat, blond-brick 'worship centre' with stackable plastic chairs and carpet that looks like spewed creme de cacao. You'd imagine that country christians, of all people, would be fond of tradition and history and the places where previous generations had been christened and married and sent to the grave. As beggars cannot be choosers we thank the reverend sincerely for access to the worship centre.
We have better luck with the reception venue - the manager of the Butter Factory, a Dutch woman named Guus, greets Nerine with open arms, and promises her that everything will be fine. It is true, everyone in Bellingen has been promising that all morning with no discernible slowing in the rate that the river has risen, but somehow with Guus, we believe it. She suggests that we set a deadline and decide at that point whether the wedding will be in Gleniffer or Bellingen. if it is to be Bellingen she will have everything ready by 5 O'clock.
We are completely relieved, even slightly triumphant, when we return to the beauty salon with Plan B in place. Fortunately the locals don't let Nerine hear the news that the butter Factory is always the first place in town to be cut off during a flood.
The SES are managing a major disaster in several parts of NSW including the Richmond River valley which is a declared natural disaster area and in which people have died. Nevertheless, they are unfailingly polite and helpful when we call for information. "And which wedding are you?" - it turns out there are three flood affected weddings in the area, but they make time for all of us, give us updated weather and tide reports and tell us what the river levels look like further up the valley. They also close North Bank Road, but tell us that it may re-open. If it were me down the end of the phone I would be hyperventilating and suggesting that the wedding should be cancelled while life and property are under threat, but instead they ask us what the deadline for deciding the venue is, and promise we can call for a full update at 1pm.
The rain is not falling. The tide is going out. The river begins to drop. We ring the SES at dead-line time, full of hope. A storm has hit Dorrigo, the water is already rising in the creeks below the plateau. We are spared an agonising, six of one half a dozen of the other, decision. Nobody is going to the Promised Lands that afternoon and even if they did, there would be no way back, and weirdly enough that's okay. A few phone calls and everything is in place for the change of venue. Nerine looks at us is despair - "it has taken me a year of stress and hard work to organise this wedding, and it runs out I could have done it in an afternoon.
