Unfortunately the horse dropped into a big hole that evidently had been scoured out by the flood and we were swept away in the current. We both finished up about a chain down stream against an almost submerged tree trunk.
I managed to climb up on the trunk of the tree. There was a whirlpool of flood water going under the log and into this the horse was sucked down under the log, and as she did not reappear I feared she was stuck there.
I lowered myself down off the log, hanging on like grim death to a branch of the tree, and as luck had it, I found I could just feel the horse's back with my feet, so I heaved down as hard as I could and to my great relief, I felt the horse's back disappear and a few seconds later she surfaced about a chain down stream.
By swimming and floundering she made dry land about one hundred yards further down, so she was safe but I still had a few problems.
I climbed back on the log and worked my way along it to where some branches of the tree were well above the water.
With the idea of making it easier to swim I decided the first thing I had to do was to undress.
The tree was jiggling up and down in the flood, but by standing on one of the limbs and hanging on with one hand, I managed to get my boots off with the other and tie them together by the laces.
I hung them on a branch, then got my trousers off, and hung them up hoping that I would be able to retrieve them when the flood went down.
By this time, not being a strong swimmer, I was not relishing the idea that I would have to swim out in the end, and the decision actually to make the plunge into the flood waters and swim ashore was becoming harder.
However when the time came it proved to be one of the easiest decisions I ever had to make in a minor crisis.
When removing my shirt and long sleeved cardigan, and with my head well and truly buried in the garments in carrying out this opera-tion, the limb I was standing on decided the timing was now perfect for it to break, and with a loud cracking noise, did so, plunging me into the water where I was at once swept away in the flood.
The next exercise was to get the garments back on so that I could at least see which way I was going.
This I did and eventually made a landfall about a hundred yards down stream, on the opposite side of the creek to the horse but on the same side as the sheep, so I was able to rescue them by driving them to higher ground and safety.
After doing that I thought I'd better do something about re-organising my clothing.
I first put on the cardigan as trousers, buttoning up in the front but it was soon obvious the neck opening was in the wrong place so I took it off again and put it on the other way round, but I could tell from the cold blast I could feel that the neck opening was still not cooperating and still very much in the wrong place.
Had anyone approached me from behind, they could have been excused for thinking that one of the blue tailed monkeys must have escaped from the zoo and gone bush.
I had to walk two miles to where I'd left the runabout in the morning and as I could not get to the Mianelup homestead because of the creek, I had to drive to Gnowangerup and ring them so that they would not be alarmed when the riderless horse arrived back.
I felt much better dressed when I was sitting down and when I arrived outside the Stock agents, by tooting the car horn, I was relieved when a charming young lady came out to see what was going on.
I was then able to explain why I could not get out of the vehicle and asked her to ring Mianelup and explain the reason for the riderless horse.
The boots and trousers which I'd so carefully hung up were washed away and never recovered.