Monday, March 05, 2012

Dam Spill

Warragamba Dam, the Sydney drinking water supply, reached capacity on Friday night (at 6.53pm) and started to spill.  The last time this happened was 16 years ago. Anyone who follows me on twitter would've seen my updates as it inched closer and closer to the top.

The Dam is about five minutes from mumndad's place, and we visit there regularly. The kids love it and they have an awesome visitor centre.  I've been going there since my family moved to Australia in 1983.  I've walked on the dam wall (back when you were allowed to - its shut now, due to the fact that if it was damaged, it'd send a 16m wall of water down to the hundreds of thousands of people who live in Penrith and surrounds), explored inside the dam wall (yep, they used to let you run about inside it), forgot about it for 10 years whilst it was closed and being upgraded, and watched as it dropped to 20% capacity and then rose to 100% just a few days ago.

  • Dam Spill footage
  • Sydney catchment authority footage


Of course we went to visit on Sunday.  You could not have kept me away.  You cannot see much of the spillway, but it was worth the trip just to hear the roar of the water, and to see the crowds.

Walking down to see the dam 
Crowds at the viewing platform
Looking out towards the spillway
That's the spillway in the distance behind the trees
youtube footage is much more interesting
 On an entirely different note, I found out that around the remote upper reaches of the dam Dingos, native to the Sydney area, live in packs.  I had no idea Sydney had its own Dingo, let alone ones that still lived in the wild.

'mazing.

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Stikandmel said...

Well then i learnt something today too, I had no idea there were dingos living in sydney! My family loved visiting the dam too!

Madmother said...

We have dingo packs up here - thought most places did. If only you could get closer to the view of all that water - wouldn't it be something cloe up?

Caitlyn Nicholas said...

It would have been amazing close up - everyone was a bit frustrated, they're being really pedantic about security.  
I just assumed that any poor Dingo around Sydney would've been killed off years and years ago.  I suppose I saw them as an 'outback' animal, but of course why would they be??  They're around urban areas up north.