Do Not Read This Title

I should get this done and move onto something else.



Continuing the account of our trip to the Long March Dam site. The background is in the earlier posts, although as a quick summary, work on the dam started about about 1840 using probationary labour, with the intention of providing irrigation for farms in the Midlands, but was abandoned a few years later due to economic and political factors. The site consists of a partially completed dam, an abandoned sandstone quarry and the nearby settlement that housed the workers.

Part 1 - Arriving
Part 2 - Dam & Quarry

And so we move onto the town... except there is a slight detour on the way.

( On to slight detour )

Last Sunday Northern Midlands Business Association members and guests visited the Long Marsh Dam site. The advertisement for the visit says "The construction of Long Marsh dam by convict labour commenced in 1840 but was not completed. The site is Heritage Listed and has remnants of convict engineering works, settlement ruins and a gravesite." I don't think it counts as probation station though I have seen it referred to as such. (There is a cache at the site too.)


There were about 16 people on the tour, in five vehicles, and our guide was David Downie, a Northern Midlands councillor and farmer, who has a 4WD ute and isn't afraid to use it. The convoy left Campbell Town just after 10 am and three hours later we reached the start of the walking track.

It doesn't usually take 3 hours. The first road we went down, the bridge was out, but the sign saying this was very helpfully just before the bridge, not up where the road started.

( Photos, really. )