ANOTHER VOYANGE OF THE DAMS

Finally for once I've noticed the end of daylight savings (thanks 
to the TV news) and someone else hasn't - the 10AM fire brigade 
pager test message just came through at 9AM. Yes I'm so stuck in 
the past that I actually still wear a pager!

As I mentioned in my last post, my post from before that is also 
stuck in (or lost to) the past because the power went out while I 
was writing it and for the sake of morning internet browsing and 
stuff like this it doesn't seem worthwhile to use a UPS with this 
PC and keep changing batteries every few years. So let's write it 
again but better, minus all the bits I've forgotten now anyway.

It's another tour (voyage?) of a couple of dams, which I took 
weekend before last, getting in before the Easter holiday when I 
deliberately keep off the holiday-traffic-ravaged roads. This time 
I went without the usual company of my 1970s 35mm SLR film camera 
because I used up my last expired films for that during my rail 
holiday up to the north of the state last year. But I'm tired of 
going around camera-less, so I grabbed a 110 film camera, and 
because the films I have for that expired in the early 1980s and 
are almost certainly useless, I relented and took the digital 
camera that I use for more practical tasks along as well. Being a 
pathetic modern product of only 21 years vintage, the digital 
camera sure enough wasn't the same as my faithful old Canon AE-1. 
Granted I probably would have been closer to the mark using a DSRL 
instead of an Olympus point-and-shoot camera to substitute for the 
AE-1, but somehow all DSLRs still remain above the junk value point 
where such technology reaches my posession, even though the very 
first models are really quite old now (the surge of discarded film 
SLR cameras seems to have ended some years ago too, for that 
matter).

The result of all that is you get to tour with me this time as 
well, through the wonders of digitisation. So let's start with 
three snapshots taken at the first dam of the two, Beaufort 
Reservoir:
gopher://aussies.space/1/~freet/photos/beaufort_reservoir/

This in fact was one dam I discovered purely accidentally while 
plotting a route to the other reservoir I visited that weekend. 
With the exception of my paper map and a notice of some rather 
dated bathing regulations introduced in the year 1900 put online by 
the local historical society, everything else seems to call this 
feature Beaufort Lake. The dam itself seems unknown to any online 
record, though the modest bathing rules date its construction 
sometime in the 19th century, which makes it relatively early. The 
use of bluestone in its construction reinforces this, although the 
signage there is completely dedicated to boating rules (lake 
regulations of the modern age) and arbitrary descriptions of 
aboriginal mythology, so more certainty of its origins seems beyond 
my reach.

Nevertheless the position of the reservoir/lake at the edge of 
town, where the sports centre and caravan park faces off against 
the gumtrees of untamed bushland wilderness, has kept it neatly 
maintained. In fact modern tastes in landscaping have endeavored to 
make it all look rather bland and somehow there didn't really feel 
like much to explore. The bluestone outlet tower with its modern 
concrete topping and precariously narrow bridge made from a single 
concrete-filled steel beam, is the most unique feature, while also 
posing an unanswered question about how the water from the 
reservoir is used by the town today.

Heading North from Beaufort the hazards of the town's bushland 
encirclement were emphasised by passing through an area burnt out 
by a bushfire about 5-10Km away just a month or two before, which 
had caused the town's evacuation. Continuing on in and out of the 
bush for some good distance through the town of Avoca and some 
others less notable or even noticable, the small town of Stuart 
Mill announces the turn down the small road to the Upper Teddington 
Reservoir:
gopher://aussies.space/1/~freet/photos/teddington_reservoir/

Running rather short of daylight, I didn't have much time to check 
out the town, but it seems well kept, in particular the healthy and 
uniform row of trees along the Teddington Road as it passes through 
the town, past as many paddocks as buildings before the true edge 
of town is reached. The road runs off on a meandering route, 
unafraid to make sudden right right-angle turns in a couple of 
places. The turn to the dam isn't very obvious, and I went past it 
continuing on to the camping area at the other end of the 
reservoir. Realising my mistake I turned around and ended up 
attempting a particulary rutted track to another little camping 
area where I had to carefully drive the Jag along the middle ridge 
between the wheel-ruts to avoid bottoming out. As is often the case 
though, this risky approach did lead to a parking spot which looked 
particularly pretty:
gopher://aussies.space/I/~freet/photos/teddington_reservoir/15parking_spot.jpg

Built sometime between 1890 and 1900, the Upper Teddington 
Reservoir never actually supplied Stuart Mill because it was built 
to serve the town of Avoca. Today it flows into the newer Lower 
Teddington Reservoir which I didn't have time to visit. I've been 
keen to see the upper reservoir since I discovered that it's 
scheduled to be "decommissioned" (demolished) sometime in the next 
few years, to the outrage of locals who enjoy it as a fishing spot. 
In fact there was a man fishing there when I visited, not 
apparantly much chatty given the mumbled response to my "G'day". In 
contrast to the Beaufort reservoir this clearly wasn't much 
maintained and in many respects this made it more interesting. It 
also has an impressive steep spillway carved into the rock, and 
with a look reminicient of early mining works as it was probably 
all originally constructed with hand tools. The wide spillway is 
separated from a similarly excavated narrow inlet channel, with the 
two water-paths divided by a peak of rock left between. Inside the 
dry man-made inlet gully was the only real evidence of any 
structural issue, with generations of wooden, and more recently 
galvanised steel, props attempting to hold the rock up.

Besides that I was surprised that there wasn't any sign of 
"deteriorating condition" in the dam itself, given here for why it 
needs to be pulled down:
https://www.parks.vic.gov.au/media-releases/2023/06/30/02/25/future-of-upper-teddington-reservoir-considered

The flooding risk to Stuart Mill might really be about an incident 
where the outlet valve apparantly got stuck open some time back. It 
seems that the real issue is that the management of the dam has 
somehow fallen upon the state parks authority, Parks Victoria, 
instead of the local water company. They don't know what to do 
about managing it so they'd rather pull it down, though I think 
it's telling that they admit they're so bound up in red tape that 
they expect it will take a year or two to even make a start on 
doing that.

For now the bureaucratic murmurings of this dam's impending doom 
seem incredibly distant when you're actually there. It's a peaceful 
location with little to impede walking all around the structure and 
the reservoir bank. The track to the dam, which I drove past, and 
other places around the bank is lined with old pine trees. The 
areas where these have grown present an interesting contrast with 
the gumtrees around the rest of the reservoir, some young gumtrees 
are even staking a precarious claim to the bed of the spillway. 
Other unfotunate trees also took root in the bed of the reservoir 
in dryer times, they're now just dead sticks poking above the 
water. As it was late in the day I couldn't hang around as long as 
I wanted to, but I found it quite a nice place to be and I can see 
how it could be popular for camping and fishing even though the 
general area isn't much of a tourist spot. There are also lots of 
surrounding walking tracks for bushwalkers to enjoy, some with 
names hinting at other water infrastructure heritage. Perhaps one 
day if I ever get into camping...

It was a late drive home after all that, somewhat risky with the 
kangaroos getting active and I saw some thinking about trying to 
get run over. There was also a mob of roos at the dam which I 
thoroughly failed to get a good photo of while suffering with the 
delay before 2000s-era digital cameras accept the chore of actually 
taking a photo after you press the shutter button. Not that I've 
ever been much good at wildlife photography even with suitable 
gear. Mainly for lack of interest, because there's rarely much 
chance for composition. Overall a fun trip, and another dam crossed 
off my diminishing list of those to visit.

 - The Free Thinker