Talk:Canberrans flood Cotter Dam on open day


 * Arrival
 * Dam open day is 23 June
 * Firies conducting burn near Stromlo. Holding up traffic.
 * Carnival atmosphere. Sausage sizzle and coffee. Two clowns on stilts dressed as Bob the builder.
 * Huge crowd - tickets from blue tent
 * Buses leave every 15 minutes from 8:30 until 16:00. Earliest ticket for 3:25pm. Hope not raining then. Sky currently very clear. Drove back to Tuggeranong.
 * Calculation: 16:00 - 8:30 = 7:30 = 7 x 4 + 2 = 30 buses x 60 = 1,800
 * Cyclist hit in road accident. Saw ambulance on its way. Hope he is okay, but doesn't look it.


 * Dam walk
 * Signage: The river s named in honour of Garrett Cotter, an Irish-born convict born in 1802 who was transported to Australia. Brought cattle to the Cotter during the 1820s drought. After a dispute with his employer Cotter was banished to the western side of the Murrumbidgee River in 1832. He built a house there. Lived in Michelago where he died in 1886. Descendants still live there.
 * Signage: Canberra owes its location to the Cotter Rover, which supplied ample fresh drinking water until the city grew too big and new dams were built at Corrin and Googong
 * Platypus and Murray cray live in the waters. Did not see any. Were some fishermen.
 * Signage: Original dam built in 1911. Hard feeling among dam engineers, particularly Percy Owen, over who deserved what credit for the dam.
 * Signage: Gravity dam chosen due to uncertainty over stability of bedrock.
 * Signage: Cotter Pub was built in 1971. Burned down in fires of 2003


 * Bus trip - guide with microphone.
 * Bus filled with 3:25 people. One seat given to a 3:40 person. Crowd without tickets may be out of luck.
 * Gravity dam. Holds back waters with sheer mass.
 * Made from roller-compacted concrete (RCC)
 * Conventional concrete used over for final touches
 * Doing these now. About two weeks work to go.
 * Concrete made on site
 * Two saddle dams to stop flood waters flowing out through depressions.
 * Dam builders have made quite a mess of the place.
 * Native seeds were collected to replant
 * Main task now to rehabilitate the area and the river
 * Guide points out submerged old dam, now heritage listed. Opened the valves (?) and salvaged some parts. Some bits on display at the Dam walk.
 * Guides says four previous open days over the years. This one is by far the biggest.
 * Site posters say: Work Safe - Dam Safe

Review of revision 1934944 [Not ready]

 * I was unaware that there are no open days in America. I have added an explanation. I gave moved the purpose of the dam up to the top. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:26, 25 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Oddly, the closest term I'm familiar with is open house, which however is usually applied to schools, and which I see from Wiktionary has a different meaning in Australia. --Pi zero (talk) 15:00, 26 June 2013 (UTC)