“ We knew there was rain coming and we’ve had that scare in the past.
We took a big step in 2008 and borrowed money for our first store against the only thing we could, a heavily forested piece of land with a little shed here in the beautiful Northern Rivers, our family home. It was scary but love will make you do almost anything.
We’ve been in business here for 8 years and had the threat of rain. We’ve always moved everything up high accordingly. We moved everything up like everyone else in town not realising the magnitude of what was in that low. 700mls in one day.
We live 40 minutes away so we were at home not realising the devastation that was happening. Everything was up way above head level. We took our hard drives and thought we were safe. We lost the lot, everything from floor to ceiling. No matter how high we still would have lost the lot. The ceiling height is about 11 feet. It wasn’t till a girl who works for us kayaked in, took the photo and texted ‘Are you sitting down?’ It was the worst case scenario.
We have the Coffs Harbour store as well so we have cold rooms out the back and 2 shops behind full of stock for both shops. We also buy in pallets and it’s all gone. Nothing is salvageable. As you can imagine, flour, oats, grains, seeds , etc., dried fruit boxes exploding. It’s total devastation.
There’s been amazing people who have come from everywhere. Strangers turning up saying ‘Hi, I’m here’. It’s been brilliant, really brilliant.
On the positive it’s a fresh start. We need to clean out, think ahead and just take one little baby step at a time. My husband Mark and I are thinking clearly about a fresh start.
This is probably, as is Fundies and Traditional Medicinals the circle of health and people just love our stores. They would miss it if we didn’t come back so we will. Maybe we’ll simplify things, maybe not carry as much stock, do a better plan for moving things out in the future. It only takes a scenario like this to make you think how to do it differently. You have to go through the worst of it to come out the other side. I’m hoping that 2 months maximum and we’ll be back. It’s a long time to be out of business but we’ll definitely be back.”