Flooded Aussie town rescued with beer

Flooded Aussie town rescued with beer
By Nick Squires in Sydney
14/06/2007
Telegraph UK

Emergency workers have come to the rescue of a town cut off by floodwaters in true Antipodean style - by delivering a large consignment of beer by boat.

Floodwaters have devastated the Hunter Valley wine-growing region:
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The tiny town of Hinton, in the Hunter Valley wine-growing region, has been surrounded for five days by the floodwaters that have devastated parts of New South Wales after storms and torrential rain at the weekend.

The murky brown water, the authorities said, contained sewage and other pollutants, but its 400 inhabitants were more worried about a lack of beer.

A plentiful supply was required to celebrate a much-anticipated rugby league match between New South Wales and Queensland yesterday.

For days State Emergency Service volunteers had been ferrying staples such as bread and milk to the stranded town in flat-bottomed boats.

Yesterday, they added 12 kegs and 36 cartons of beer to their cargo.

"They'll be able to watch the game and have a cold one tonight," said Philip Campbell, a SES spokesman. The local watering hole, the Victoria Hotel, was in danger of becoming a real-life version of one of Australia's best known ballads, The Pub With No Beer. The song, by the late country singer Slim Dusty, laments that "there's nothing so lonesome, so morbid or drear, than to stand in a bar of a pub with no beer".