Queensland graziers whose cattle was washed away, fences buried and stations ravaged by floodwaters last month are slowly rising from the mud.
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After almost a decade gripped by brutal drought, the barren landscape is now coming to life as feed pushes up through the soil.
But after losing almost everything in the flood, grazier Corbert Tritton says farmers like him want more rain.
"We've got grass, but it's amazing how quickly it dries off," he told AAP.
"Everyone wants rain now. Even though we got a lot, it's all gone."
Some properties are still underwater, while others are a flurry of activity as an army of volunteers travel from across the country to help graziers get back on their feet.
Farmers are beginning to buy livestock to start replacing the hundreds of thousands of cattle that are believed to have been lost.
Kilometres of fencing on Mr Tritton's Silver Hills property needs to be replaced, and total strangers from charity organisation BlazeAid have turned up to help.
"I didn't ask for them but they have been great, absolutely terrific. They just find jobs to do and do them. It's humbling, very humbling," he said.
Mr Tritton says the cattle that survived look better than they have in years, and tractors are racing across his fields planting some 1200 hectares of farmland with sorghum.
"We lost a lot of infrastructure; it's carnage everywhere but we are moving on, we're getting into it."
Daphne White drove from Ballarat in Victoria's Central Highlands to Julia Creek to offer a hand to anyone that needed it.
"I just couldn't bear to think that they thought nobody cared," she said.
"It was just about going out there and doing what I can for the people that are in desperate need of help."
For days she has worked at Rachael and Anthony Anderson's Julia Creek station alongside Sally and Jim Burford, a semi-retired couple who drove 2600km from their home in Mannum, South Australia.
The Burfords are former dairy farmers, and decided they'd hit the road after watching the disaster play out on television.
"The huge volume and power of the water that's ripped through these properties and buried fences probably under four or five foot of silt, washed fences away down the paddock, that's what we've been trying to drag back," Ms Burford said.
"But we've seen the spirit of people come through all sorts of trauma and devastation.
"These people have risen above it as if to say 'It is what it is, let's get on with it'."
In the tiny town of Richmond, 600-odd residents are banding together with out-of-towners who have arrived to fix the railway.
"We have gone from disaster to an economic revival. It's going pretty good, you can't rent a house in town," Mayor John Wharton said.
Mr Wharton said the dead cattle are now a thought of the past as the town looks forward to the future.
Australian Associated Press
