Debbie the swimming cow

The Angus-cross cow, six months pregnant and due to calve in a few months, clambered ashore at Pimlico, near Ballina, at the mouth of the Richmond River, to the surprise of landholders. John Stead and his wife were watching the Richmond River in full flood and the debris roaring past. “We have a jetty and angled ramp where she could scramble and get a foothold, so that’s how she scrambled up. Most of the way it is all mangroves she wouldn’t have got out of.” The couple called a neighbour and built a temporary yard for the cow, now called Debbie, after the cyclone and all the debris floating down the river.