When Ashleigh Tuala and her husband Liva installed a 140,000-litre tank on their Henty property, they thought they were "doing the right thing", but months of drought have seen the family forced to pay thousands of dollars for water deliveries.
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The Tuala family had a transportable home built on their 10-hectare property at Henty almost two years ago and decided to install water tanks and solar power.
"We wanted to be a bit more self-sufficient," Mrs Tuala said.
"Plus, if we wanted to get town water connected, it was going to be nearly $20,000 and power was going to cost more than $100,000. So, we went with solar and we went with tanks.
"We have lived here for a year and a half and we've barely had any rain."
Since they moved in, the Tualas have spent about $8000 on water. A $500 delivery provides enough water to quarter-fill their tank and lasts for about three months, although with summer coming, it is likely to be even less.
"People think because it's green in the area it's OK, but we're not getting rain," Mrs Tuala said.
"We went into Wagga the other day, and I heard they got 25mm. It was so heavy, but as soon as you hit The Rock and outwards this way, there was barely any rain. It maybe rained here for half an hour straight and that was it.
"It's really hard. We just want it to rain."
Mrs Tuala has six children, four of whom still live at home.
She said the family is being extremely conservative with water use.
"We don't have a dishwasher. We only fill the sink halfway to wash up. Everyone has two-minute showers," Mrs Tuala said.
"We just keep saying to the kids 'it's going to break, it's got to break sooner or later', but it's not coming."
The family has some sheep and horses on their property and Mrs Tuala said they can drink the equivalent of about two bathtubs of water each day.
"I've considered selling my animals because they're obviously going to need more water in summer to drink, but at the same time, I need them to keep eating the grass and weeds down," she said.
Cal Graham from Water 2 U, which provides deliveries, said prior to the weekend's rain, "the drought was starting to bite pretty savagely".
"We haven't really had a decent amount of rain in two years and in some places it's been very minimal," he said.
Mr Graham said he is noticing an increasing number of deliveries to properties that had, in the past, relied on tanks or to newly established homes that were intended to depend on this water, but had simply not had rain.
He has had calls from people all over NSW, asking for deliveries of water.
