And while the rain was welcomed on Thursday, filling dams and watering paddocks, it was a turn for the worse of Friday.

The likes of St Anthonys Creek and Winburndale Rivulet were already rising and flowing fast and Friday’s storm brought even more water into the systems and caused them to flood nearby paddocks.

Paddocks were littered with debris, fences were damaged or destroyed and livestock were killed.

Glanmire resident Jim Inwood recorded 68.5 millimetres of rain on Thursday, followed by 56.5 millimetres on Friday.

He’s now retired, but used to work at the 800 hectare property Toulon. He still lends a helping hand to his son Michael, who now lives there. 

“We’re fortunate that it wasn’t too bad,” he said. 

“We didn’t had any bad erosion, just a small bit.

“The worst part for us was on our eastern boundary, where the flood gates were damaged and fences were destroyed.”

Mr Inwood, who is now 84, began working at Toulon as a 16-year-old.

The recent flood isn’t the worst he’s seen, reflecting on several from the 1950s and 1980s. 

However, it’s still done a lot of damage.

Riding on Mr Inwood’s side-by-side FWD, the Western Advocate got a first hand look at just how high the water level rose. 

A popular location where the Inwood family like to enjoy a barbecue on their property is now littered with debris and nearby trees have now been washed out of the ground.

A further drive with Mr Inwood took the Western Advocate to Toulon’s eastern boundary, where fences were damaged or ripped out of the ground. 

“I’ve seen a few floods like this, but this still isn’t good,” he said.

“Where we used to cross the creek normally with a car, we can’t do that anymore,” he said.

The damage from the storm was even worse at William Bravenboer’s neighbouring property Glenallen, also at Glanmire. 

“My irrigation pump was washed away. It was washed about 500 metres downstream,” he explained.

“We also had an old Nissan Bluebird washed about 800 metres down the river. It’s all now buried in river rocks.

“I’ve never seen anything like this in the 18 years I’ve been here.” 

Mr Bravenboer also lost eight rams during the storm.

“I had 24 rams, now I’ve only got 16 left. Eight of them drowned,” he said.

“They normally try and get to the higher ground near the river, but with the water flowing they might’ve got trapped.”

He also lost many flood gates and fences that will need replacing.

“There’s weeks worth of work to be done, but I just don’t have the time to work on it all day,” he said.

“I’m meant to be mowing lucerne right now.

“Thankfully, I’ve had some friends helping me, but there’s some places I can’t access by vehicle.

“It just seems like a once in a lifetime flood.”