Bull survives 56-mile trip down flooded river

Barney the Brahman bull was yesterday relaxing on his farm in the Tweed Valley in Australia after miraculously surviving an 56-mile (87km) journey through raging creeks and rivers during the weekend's wild floods.

Through an amazing stroke of luck, and perhaps some bovine bravado, Barney survived being washed from the safety of his Limpinwood property about 2am on Sunday and in to Hopping Dick Creek, which fed in to Oxley Creek and eventually the Tweed River near the town of Murwillumbah.

He was found alive and well, though somewhat tired almost seven hours later at Fingal near the mouth of the Tweed River after a passer-by spotted him floating downstream and alerted park rangers.



Locals estimate Barney travelled almost 90kms on his death-defying journey over flooded bridges and causeways to the ocean.

Owner Don Baxter was yesterday still shaking his head at how his 12-month-old bull calf had battled one of the biggest floods in Tweed history - and lived to tell the tale.

Mr Baxter said he was receiving the adulation of his fellow bovines. `He is real good mates with one of the other bulls and when we got him back they went up to eachother and you sort of sensed he was saying: 'mate, you have no idea what I have just been through'.