The Clutha River, Lake Dunstan and the Clyde Dam

Construction of the Clyde Dam began in 1979 and was completed in 1992. There was some controversy around its construction, due to the flooding of the picturesque Cromwell Gorge, old Cromwell town and farms and orchards. However, it went ahead. The Clyde Dam is the largest concrete gravity dam in New Zealand consisting of one million cubic metres of concrete. Its height is 100 metres, width at base, 70 metres, width at crest 10 metres and length at crest 490 metres. It is an impressive sight, even if, like me, you aren't particularly interested in hydro-electric dams.  As Pete did some of his Electrical Engineering Apprenticeship on Hydro-dams in NZ, he was and was amazed at how much knowledge he had retained and could recall of how it worked, what the parts where called etc. Mostly, his explanation went over the top of my head.

After looking at the Dam from the "down" side, we drove down to Historical Clyde. There are still lots of the old stone building there today and still being used. I loved the Dunstan Pub which the sign of still reads "good stabling".  We crossed the old bridge and drove up to the "top" side of the dam, where the local rowing club have there club house and free camping is allowed. A very lovely spot. The water is so clear. We say ducklings with their parents swimming on the lake.

Underneath the old Clyde Bridge.

While in Clyde we discovered a shop that sold wool and cottons and xmas decorations and all sorts of little nick nacks. I bought some of the "demin" cottons to knit dishcloths with and a pattern to make woolly hats. 

On the drive back up to Cromwell, we drove along a 4 WD track right alongside Lake Dunstan. There we saw one of the many tunnels that were built/tunneled into the hills above the "flood" line of the Clutha River to assist drain any water from the hills. Removing the water this way increased the land stability. Apparently, there is near 40 km's of tunnels throughout the hills up the river. While building the dam, an underground lake was discovered about half way between Cromwell and Clyde, which caused major concern. A huge stabilisation series of walls were built on man-made terraces, with monitoring points. If this underground lake ever manages to collapse the earth in front of it, it will pour out into the Clutha River, upstream of the dam, causing the dam to collapse and Clyde town and all those in it to disappear. Apparently there are lots of monitoring stations!

We also stopped to take a photo of the hillsides, as the rock faces are quite spectacular. Unfortunately, there size and steepness is never portrayed properly in photos.  The lupins, although a weed, do look quite beautiful. 

4 comments Holidays, leisure