Only a few months ago grazier Ernie Camp was riding across his property on the Gulf, looking to the sky, checking the weather apps and hoping for rain.
Now the Burketown mayor and Australian Cattle Producers past president said he's worried the region which had already been impacted this year by three cyclones could be in for another prolonged spell of intense wet which he said could reduce cattle prices, impact supply and leach protein from the forage.
On Tuesday morning, speaking from Floraville Station, a 94,000 hectare property south east of Burketown, Mr Camp had recently returned from riding his bay mare Nutella to check on the state of their Brahman cross Charolais Santa cattle and the height of nearby Leichhardt Falls.
Mr Camp said only a three months earlier he'd hoped the dry would be over as soon as possible.
"Before new year I was very worried we were not getting the rain we needed," Mr Camp said.
"Now we have had 900 millimetres this year and it reminded me of the very wet 1970s.
"At the moment the Leichhardt falls are over 11m but they were 15m higher during the floods in 2023.
"I'm not someone who usually knocks back rain but I am a bit over it.
Mr Camp said while he and other local graziers hoped the rain would not cause anything like the damage felt in 2023, they understood more flooding could occur very quickly.
"A year ago we had intense flooding and now in certain areas here the cattle are getting shredded," he said.
"There's no such thing as high ground on the Gulf, even though it's not heavy rain the cattle can't find anywhere high and dry and the grass has lost most of its protein.
"We just have to hope the weather won't get more extreme."
Mr Camp said so far 2024 had been "very challenging" for some graziers looking to feed their livestock.
"It's still tough times for people," he said.
"Unless they can get mineral salt out to where their livestock are and then there's the costs associated.
"On the eastern said of the Gulf it's not so bad, but once you go west to the Northern Territory border like Hells Gate, you do see stories coming out on how they expect some stock losses."
Mr Camp said the persistent rain also created issues with station maintenance work normally undertaken at this time of year.
"It's delaying work on stock, welding and repairing the fences and will put us behind the ball as far as annual mustering... which strains your finances considering everybody is wearing so bitter a burden from last year," he said.
"You can get bogged very quickly due to all the rain as the silt brought down in the 2023 floods, the black soil is very sticky so I have been out on Nutella a bit."
Mr Camp said another issue was mail delays as roads had been closed almost continuously sine New Year's Day.
"The amount of rain we have rain like this reflecting more back to the 70s and back then road access was much worse then, not that it's ideal now," he said.
"I am not a direct critic of Australia Post or the industries who support us but one issue is our undelivered mail being stored in Townsville.
"While most of our mail backlog has been resolved - apart from some mail in Burketown held for Doomadgee as there's no road access at the moment - travelling 14 hours to Townsville is not great.
"The windows to travel from Cloncurry to Burketown are very small and often the roads are closed across the Gulf making it very difficult."
Mr Camps said he hoped the state government could investigate secure postal storage closer to Gulf delivery points.
"We only have postal agencies around here not post offices, so we might need to look at an alternative at Mt Isa which is 90 minutes from Cloncurry compared to at least nine hours from Townsville."
Looking ahead, Mr Camp said everyone he knew hoped for better times ahead.
"Going forward the rain is covering more of Queensland and Australia and combined with low cattle prices from last year with people worried about El Nina being a factor, let's hope the weather reduces," he said.
"And lets hope the rain falls where its really needed and make the prices better."
