28 February 2011 Finding Pago weir

Map: Tidbinbilla 1:25000

Getting There

This walk was organised and led by me as a private walk:

Monday 28 February - Finding Pago weir - S/E,X. A guided tour to Pago weir by the man who built it. Around 6km and 150m climb. Map: Tidbinbilla.

2 of us drove via Piccadilly Circus to Bulls Head, then down the Bendora Dam Road to the Warks Camp area.

Further Information

We'll drive to Bulls Head, down the Bendora Dam Road and park at Warks Camp. Then walk in Warks Rd and Old Mill Rd till we find Pago weir.

This has been an extremely interesting exercise, tracking down Pago weir. It's involved quite a number of people, all generally interested in the bush and very willing to help in any way they could. See the story at Brindabella Weirs.

Photographs

You can also access all photographs here.

Walk

Track map: thumbnail is active - click for a larger picture

Track

John arrived pretty much on time. Hard to understand how he, a man who spent the majority of his career working with water, got a little lost in Duffy, where all the streets are named after rivers and dams.

We drove via Cotter (the dam will be monstrous) and Brindabella Road to Piccadilly Circus, then on to Bulls Head. We took the Bendora Dam Road down to the Warks Camp area and parked at the intersection.

We wandered in N along Warks Road, then took the switch-back up Old Mill Road. We passed a smaller track on our left (which I later realised was Pago Break), but continued gently up Old Mill Road to the first major gully with water running down it. We'd come up this drainage line on our unsuccessful search for Pago weir on 4 Jan 11.

It didn't look too familiar to John. He'd told me that Pago weir was on the up side of Old Mill Road, but remembered organising the bulldozing of an access track in to it for construction purposes in 1968. So we continued along to the second gully. This was where we began our unsuccessful search on 4 Jan 11.

We did an about turn and came back to the first, southern, drainage line. It looked pretty densely vegetated and John was thinking more and more of his access track coming in at the top of the site, so we walked back down Old Mill Rd and turned right (SW) up Pago Break. We eventually decided to leave it an attempt to contour across to the creek line. We left Pago Break at a graded side drain, but soon ended up back on Old Mill Rd.

Here we split up - never an absolutely wise move - and I battled up the creek line. John had mentioned that the weir was near a rocky outcrop and that it was of a reasonable height (some mathematical formula determined the height that the weirs were built). Seeing a rocky outcrop and a considerable drop in the creek I was about to yell out, but it was not the weir.

It was 230m distance up the creek without a paddle (or gaiters) in 22 minutes to reach Pago weir. I gave a yell of delight. It's at UTM 55H 665408-6082421 (MGA94). After I finished photographing, I went up to the top of the weir. There was the clearly benched but overgrown access track!

I followed it out, 250m in 9 minutes, to come out on Pago Break about 10m from where John and I had turned back!! But the joining point was totally overgrown and you can see no trace of the access track from Pago Break. So nothing wrong with John's memory - it's just that the bush has grown a little in 43 years.

I skipped back down Pago Break and up Old Mill Rd to find John gone. He had started up the creek line, planning to meet me as I came down. A little shouting and waiting saw us reunited. We walked back to the car, having no food and the time getting on.

So John rightfully claimed the prize of a fine bottle of Penfolds Cabernet Sauvignon. No doubt he was a little disappointed in not being able to see his handy work, so we've planned a return visit, straight there, on 29 Mar 11.

It's a small world. Our stories rambled as we rambled. John knows my brother-in-law, the developer of the Hydsys water data management system used in John's work (and also most of the other water industry people who contributed information for this search) and John's brother-in-law was in the army and knew my father-in-law.

I won't tell you how old John is. All I'll say is that he's 20 years older than I am - and I'm 62. If I'm running and walking like John in 20 years, I'll be most fortunate.

One more to tick off the list. A huge thanks to John B.

Distance: 8.8km Climb: 200m. Time: 10.35am - 1.35pm (3hrs).
Grading: S/E-R,X; M(8)

KMZ file for Google Earth/Maps: Pago Weir

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This page last updated 25Aug22