Somewhat controversially, Dad has created a spillway at the back of the dam in order to lower the water levels after the recent torrential rains so the "damhouse" isn't totally flooded. It apparently is going to have rocks added next visit to prevent erosion. Ironically, this is the same spillway that Dad closed up several years ago in order to boost the dam capacity. Dave had wanted it not to be changed but there was a misunderstanding and, well, now we have a spillway again.
This is what it looked like before the spillway was put in... the dam floor was covered but not by as much as I expected, so in the scheme of things the spillway hasn't reduced the capacity by that much because the water had already started to overflow around the dam sides.
It has been raining incessantly at Amherst. In August alone, there was over 110cm of rain, and then on Sept 4th there was another 80+mm. Considering we normally get only around 500mm of rain in a whole year, this was pretty incredible.
When Dave was back in mid-August the dam was already the fullest we'd seen it:
The water was already lapping at the floor of the "dam house":
Then on Dad's last visit a week or so back he said it was over the damhouse floor and you could just see a window sticking up. I wouldn't be surprised if now you can't even see the window (!). Fortunately, Dad reckons it'll all be fine once it dries out as it is all hardwood / treated pine. But still. Seems hard to believe that it could go from being the lowest water level we'd ever seen to the highest in the space of scarcely 18 months.
