As the first day of term four dawned, the teachers of the Bedgerabong Public School were climbing into a Rural Fire Service truck for their commute through flood-affected Central West New South Wales.
RFS volunteers have been ferrying the three educators and principal of the 39-student school to and from work for two months.
Teacher Kate Hanns said it was "definitely worth it" for the novelty and safety of traversing potholes and culverts in a truck.
Year five student Lillian Cantwell said it was "pretty cool".
"It's cool that they're very dedicated to come out in a fire truck instead of closing the school," she said.
Her schoolmate Noah Brown said about 1,000 acres of his family's nearby farm was under water.
"It's pretty bad," he said.
"We have to go through a tinny to get to the other side of the farm."
The drivers are members of two local RFS crews, including Yarragong captain Andrew Barnard.
He said putting his hand up to help out was the country way, as well as "part of being a volunteer".
"We look out for each other and just help each other as we can," he said.
The slow-moving and sometimes devastating floods of the Lachlan Valley are part of life for the locals.
The region has been dealing with flooding at varying levels for months.
During flooding in November last year teachers were flown to school by RFS helicopter.
It is a backup plan if the small community becomes completely cut off by road again.
There are fears the flooding worsen with the La Niña summer, but the situation is just the latest in a series of disasters.
"It's constant," Bedgerabong Public School principal Paul Faulkner said.
"We had the floods in 2016, the drought that followed after that, the mouse plague, we've had COVID — and then a good crop starting this year only to be wiped out by this situation.
"It's terrible."
In the devastating 2016 flood, Jackie Darcy and her family were isolated on their farm for about eight weeks.
She described it as "horrendous" and is staying in Forbes temporarily so she can get to work and so her teenage son Jeremy can go to school.
"Last term he missed a fair bit of school because the school bus couldn't get through," Ms Darcy said.
She is optimistic this event will not be as bad as 2016, but she is still concerned.
"Sandbagging and preparing for flooding is hard work, mentally and physically," Ms Darcy said.
"We're preparing for not the best.
"We're hoping the predictions will be less than what they're saying at this moment, but we'll wait and see."
