One kilometre underground
Wednesday, March 27th, 2013 at 10:02pm
This morning our Tasmania road trip started the day with an underground tour of the Mount Lyell Mine. The tour took around three hours, covering the above ground and (more importantly) the underground operations of the mine. We didn’t go all of the way down, but we got to the crib room, saw underground workshops, the crusher, the main shaft, haulage trucks and all sorts of other things. The operations are quite a contrast to the tour of the Super Pit in Kalgoorlie that we went on two years ago during the Perth road trip.
Following the mine we stopped by the Spion Kop Lookout in town before heading east, where our day switched from mining to dams and power stations. Our first stop was at Lake St Clair, where we were not interested in the nature, but in the old pumping station.
Comtinuing on we started to pass the series of dams that supply the Tungatinah Power Station, including the intake portal.
Shortly after that we passed Tungatinah Power Station itself and then the Tarraleah Power Station on the opposite side of the river.
The old village for building Tarraleah is now part of a resort, but it does have a viewing platform above the penstocks.
From there we followed the pipes, canals and aqueducts up to Clark Dam.
Our path then took up down the Derwent River where we spotted the spilling Cluny Dam, but only from a distance.
Our final dam visit was to the Repulse Dam, where they appear to be really keen about limiting loads over the bridge.
Since Tasmania has such a large number of hydroelectic power generation it is not surprising we are seeing so many, in fact we will see more tomorrow (Gordon and Serpentine) and in a few days time when we head back north.
