The Weir

One of the selling points when we purchased Pemberley in 2005 was access to water.  Despite the drought our little creek still flows, albeit underground in some places, and the small weir remains full.  In fact, last century it was the water supply for the farm's dairy and house.  The creek doesn't appear have to a name on the maps, but flows into Wattle Camp Creek just past our boundary.  Maybe we should name it?

In the 1960s the owners laid 250 meters of galvanised pipe from the weir to the house tank. According to a previous resident it was a revolution not to have to carry the water up the hill in buckets. (It is a very steep hill.)

It has always been our plan to reboot the pipeline and the drought has spurred us on to do it before summer.  A couple of weeks ago we optimistically shoved a hose down the pipeline at the top - hoping it would trickle through, unobstructed, to the bottom.  It backed up after a few minutes.  We then dug up the weir end of the system to find meters of clogged and rusted pipe.

So, we had two options.  Dig up and repair the old pipe or lay a new one.  We chose the latter.  After ripping the route with the Fergie (built in 1948) we cleared the trench by hand (approximately 23 cubic meters of dirt).  The plan is to lay a 40mm PVC pipe and get another 60 years out of it.

The last 45 meters

The target is yonder windmill (near the trees)