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Australia has been hit with intense flash floods. The emergency has meant 18,000 people across New South Wales have been evacuated from their homes.

But it's not just the people who've been impacted by the torrential rain, the wildlife has too.

Spiders have been scuttling into garages and crawling up walls and fences to escape the rising flood waters.

Melanie Williams from Macksville in New South Wales shared photos on social media which showed hundreds of spiders trying to reach drier ground.

Melanie Williams watched as "thousands" of spiders scaled the fence of her back yard, she told ABC news.

"As the water was rising, the letterbox was going under further and further and I could see all these little black things on there and I thought 'oh my God, they're spiders'," she said.

An expert told ABC that, like people and animals, the arachnids were trying to seek safety on higher ground.

"What happens with the floods is all these animals that spend their lives cryptically on the ground can't live there anymore," explained Professor Dieter Hochuli from Sydney University.

The photos come after Australia's east coast experienced record rainfall and lots of people have been rescued from the floodwaters.

Communities in the Mid North Coast are facing the worst flooding conditions since 1929 and officials say the "one-in-a-50-year event" may continue all week and have urged the public to be careful.

Australia's Bureau of Meteorology has forecast "increased rainfall, strong winds, damaging surf and abnormally high tides" in New South Wales on Tuesday.

It also said that some 10 million people across every state and territory except Western Australia were now under a weather warning.