The wife went back to work this morning after having a couple of days off because of a cold. She’s gone off on the train, as she does when it’s raining, so her cold is quite likely to make a comeback later this week. She’s in for an interesting day either way as the eldest daughter is going in with her for some ‘work experience’. She’s home off school for her winter break and is getting bored.
The youngest, also home from school of course, was a bit jealous but is sitting quietly at the moment writing up a short story about her day out to Warragamba Dam yesterday. Besides, she’s off to the pictures with a family friend today and off to see Disney’s “Memo on Ice” later this week. Nice for some!
She wanted to visit the dam to have a look at the water levels and since it’s been a while since we visited the place we said ok let’s go look.
We’ve only been up twice since 1998 which is when they started ‘improvements’ The last time we got access to the dam itself we were able to go on a guided tour through the dam walls and saw a presentation and film about the construction and how it all works. It must have been soon after that they closed public access while the improvements were started.
Because of the (then) possibility of flood (ha!) they wanted to build a new ‘slip-way’ to take care of any potential overflow in case of a once on a thousand year flood. By the time they were finished with that there was a real possibility that Sydney would run out of water because of a drought… typical… so they needed to keep the dam closed whilst they built a new ‘deep water’ inlet valve.
We figured after 10 years surely it must be open… but we were wrong. They are *now* rebuilding the visitor centre to make it a better experience for visitors so they can get a clearer idea of the importance of the dam to Sydney etc etc etc. Trouble is of course right now nobody can get near it.
Apparently the new centre will be open next June… but if the past 10 years is anything to go by I won’t be holding my breath in anticipation!
The Eclectic Interweb 