The History
In 1883 a weir was built across the river in an area that was
originally known as the Parish of Currawa. This was known as
the Pine Lodge Weir and it had the purpose of raising the
level of the stream to supply water for stock and domestic purposes
in the Shepparton, Numurkah and Tungamah districts,
and also for the Shepparton township. The sight of the weir
that was selected by a Government engineer at the time was
condemned by the Shepparton Shire Works Trust as they felt
it was unsuitable. The Government refused to change their plans and
faced with the stark alternative of having the "Government's weir"
or no water supply, the Trust reluctantly proceed with the
construction of it. Not surprisingly the weir washed away in the
very first flood and then followed 13 years of enquiries, reports,
and arguments. The Shepparton Shire Waterworks Trust refused
to strike a rate to meet its repayments and interest, on the
grounds that the failure of the weir was the responsibility of the
Government, and in any case, it was clearly unjust to tax farmers
for a non-existent water supply.
Eventually, possibly after many "we told you so" lines, the
Government gave in and wrote off the outstanding debt on the Pine
Lodge works, authorised a fresh advance and approved the Trust's
site for a new weir at Gowangardie.
The Gowangardie Weir was built in 1897 and it is still
functioning, of sorts, today. It is a mass concrete structure 90
metres long and four metres high. Gowangardie creates a pool
extending around 2.5km upstream and the weir provides for diversion
to the East Shepparton Stock and Domestic System. There is
no fish-way at the weir and this prevents fish movement from the
lower to upper Broken River, except in times of high river
flows.
The Cache
The above coordinates will take you to the a section of the weir.
At this point you will need to find some numbers that will give you
the final cache location. There are 2 sets of the same numbers
placed at the weir. Now, depending on your personal ability or
fears, as in one member of Team GraMon's case, one set of the
numbers will require you to walk halfway across the top
concrete section of the weir. If that sort of thing is not your cup
of tea, another set of numbers are located at the top of some steel
rungs protruding from the wall at the start of the concrete
section. This second set will also provide the numbers required if
we ever see a lot of water go through the weir again.
Once you have found the numbers, plug them into the following
coordinates:
S 36° 25.___
E 145° 41.___
You are looking for an ammo container hidden in a generic
geocaching spot. Coordinate accuracy was around 5-7m on the several
visits we made for one reason or another. I recommend leaving your
car parked at the above coordinates and walking to the final
location. If you have GeoKids with you please take care as this
area has a few spots that could cause some mishaps. On the day we
placed the cache there were bull ants everywhere! Please be careful
or you may have to drive home sans jeans as I did! No FTF scratchy
in the cache as we had ran out. Will catch up with the finder on
Anzac Day I am sure. Cheers.