We moved to the valley on December 2nd, 2023. The next day, snow arrived, and with it a deep quiet that slowed everything down. It softened the landscape and briefly covered the scars left behind by post-flood recovery works ordered and carried out as part of a government-led response. We needed that pause.

When spring came, it was hard to walk up the valley. What only months earlier had felt like a green oasis with a gentle creek now looked more like a raised roadway cut through the landscape. As part of the flood recovery, the road had been widened, grass removed, and large amounts of gravel from the creek piled onto the original path. Because the creek barrier had not been cleared since the floods of 2012, a significant volume of material had accumulated. In the process, sections of the creek were narrowed, scraped down to bare rock, and made difficult to approach.