MINE DAMS Nice warm weather lately, I took a trip to the beach yesterday, so weekend jobs are piled up for this Sunday now after my stay at my mother's last weekend. Still, before I forget, I'll jot down some notes about the abandoned dams I looked at in a former gold mining area on the way. BERRINGA RESERVOIR This is accessed by a very unpromising looking track leading off the Derwent Road, opposite the entrance to the Berringa sports ground, in this old mining town of which there isn't really enough left among the gumtrees to tell that you've even arrived. From the road there's no sign or anything to tell that this rough track isn't just access to a private paddock, but I wandered in on foot and eventually discovered an old sign declaring it as the entrance to the Berringa Reservoir Wildlife Reserve. Along the unclear path through the trees to the reservoir itself there are pieces of old rotten picnic tables and an overgrown path to a bird hide for watching waterbirds in the reservoir. Not a very promising passtime at the moment because the warm weather has accompanied a continuing lack of rainfall that promises to extend the current drought, so now the reservoir is completely dry. Still it was fun to be able to check out the earth-construction dam wall from the reservoir side, complete with the rusty remains of a small galvanised pipe which was evidently the last outlet from the reservoir before it was given over to the birds. The reservoir was built to serve the township in the late 1800s, though even then when the town boasted a hotel, newspaper, and railway station, the water needs must have been relatively modest since it's not a large capacity reservoir. Today though, the few remaining residents presumably have to fend for themselves so far as water goes, as I do. The spillway is fairly impressive for such a small dam, with quite a deep channel, they must expect the stream to run through with some force in wetter times, and it might be interesting to see that when sunch times finally return. SPEEDWELL DAM A little ways north at the next former gold mining town/mine of Staffordshire Reef, now just another easily-missed small group of houses in the bush, is a turn to the promising-sounding Speedwell Dam Road. This gravel track actually just goes in a loop back to the curiously named Grandma's Road which it starts from, but a rough little unsignposted fork on the right goes down to the dam itself. The track gets a bit too steep downhill even for my sense of adventure in a vintage luxury sedan, so I parked at a clearing which turned out to be an old mine site, also evidently someone's old drinking spot with lots of old beer bottles and some old mattresses. I can't help but think I'd hesitate to get drunk next to an unguarded bottomless pit, but I guess I'm just a square. This time I took my camera along, left behind for my last dam visit since I wasn't hopeful of finding anything, so you get some photos: gopher://aussies.space/1/~freet/photos/dams_etc_april_2026/speedwell_dam/ The little reservoir, presumably one of multiple reservoirs constructed for the Speedwell mining company in the 1860s-1880s, is quite pretty amongst the trees. In fact to feed the boilers for steam engines at the quartz crushing batteries for all the mines in the area, the entire forest surrounding both towns was reportedly cut down in the late 1800s, only recovering after the gold ran out, although apparantly not to its former extent. Built in a valley, it's a little deeper than the Beringa reservoir, with quite a steep drop-off downstream of the dam wall. The row of wooden posts driven through the middle of the reservoir is rather a mystery to me. There's no sign of a fence running to the edges, maybe it's something to do with catching yabbis? The spillway wasn't very impressive, indeed it was hard to spot in the photo I took so I didn't upload that. Since the reservoir was so deserted and hidden I took the chance to lay naked in the sun there for a little while, though the murky water wasn't enticing for taking a dip. JUBILEE MINE This was built to serve the Jubilee Mine, near the now completely disappeared town of Italian Gully which was at the beginning of the narrow gravel road leading to the (empty) picnic area at the mine site and then the dam. It was one of the largest gold mines in the area in the late 1800s, though all the equipment was as usual later moved to other mines or taken for scrap. The foundations are impressive and presented with some information signs to test your imagination with descriptions of what once stood upon them. gopher://aussies.space/1/~freet/photos/dams_etc_april_2026/jubilee_mine/ In a clearing adjacent to the old cyanide tank I found this plant which I didn't recognise: gopher://aussies.space/I/~freet/photos/dams_etc_april_2026/jubilee_mine/feather_duster_plant.jpg gopher://aussies.space/I/~freet/photos/dams_etc_april_2026/jubilee_mine/feather_dusters.jpg Presumably it's a native of some sort, but it seems strange on its own in that tringle-shaped clearing. The flowers at the end of the long stems reminded me of feather dusters, and in fact they were soft to the touch just like feathers or fur. Maybe the mine manager's wife dropped her feather duster in some mining chemicals and it mutated into its own new lifeform? :) JUBILEE DAM The road continues to the dam, if you find the little branch off from the loop at the mine site carport. It did get a bit tricky to navigate in terms of ground clearance in the Jag, though the potholes actually became fewer. This reservoir was much larger than the other's I'd seen, emphasising the greater size of the operation there. It also was the first place I'd been with other visitors, a father taking his sons fishing, probably thinking he needed his big 4x4 ute to get to places like that. Even though much larger, it still had a very modest spillway compared to the Berringa dam, though it was probably dug out much deeper originally and since collapsed in. There were some signs of a sluice gate which had maybe opened to a channel leading beck to the mine site, but I'm only guessing from marks in one small concrete part of the earth dam wall. The water level looked a bit down but certainly healthier than at the other reservoirs. gopher://aussies.space/1/~freet/photos/dams_etc_april_2026/jubilee_dam/ PIGGOREET After finishing with the dams, I took a winding road on through the completely vahished gold mining town of Piggoreet. This adjoins another distinctively named former gold mining site, Devil's Kitchen. Again the boom years were in the mid to late 1800s and it was mostly gone by the early 20th century. No dams or much of anything left to see really, but the road and some old tree stumps were pretty to photograph in the valley there. I've also included a nice sunset shot taken from the car on a mountain road much later on my route. gopher://aussies.space/1/~freet/photos/dams_etc_april_2026/ - The Free Thinker