Mundaring Weir is located 39 kilometres from Perth, Western Australia. It is situated in the Darling Scarp in the Mundaring area. The word “weir” means dam. The dam was constructed across the Helena River in1898. It was also in the same year that the town of Mundaring was gazetted.
In 1829, Ensign Robert Dale, a soldier was the first European to explore the area. It was only after the construction of the dam that the European population grew significantly.
An Irish Australian engineer C Y O’Connor was instrumental in the transportation of water to the Eastern Goldfields of Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie in the east of Western Australia. The lake created by the dam is named Lake C Y O’Connor in honour of him. Formerly this lake is known as the Helena River Reservior. The Water Corporation website refers to this dam as the Mundaring Dam but other authorities eg. Geographic Names or Geosciences Australia does not use this term.
In the late 1940s, construction works began, to raise the dam and it was completed in November 1951. The “pipehead dam” (the downstream dam from the weir) was constructed in the early 1970s.
A railway line was built from Mundaring to the Mundaring Weir site. The Mundaring Weir Branch Railway was initially constructed to transport materials for the construction of the dam by the Public Works Department of Western Australia. It was only after the dam was completed that the location became a favourite among the picnickers and sightseers.
There were special picnic excursion trains that traveled to the weir until the late 1940s. The railway line was closed to traffic in 1952. Today, the lower zig-zag section of the end of the railway line can still be seen when the dam’s water level drops below 35%.
The Bibbulmun Track, a 963 kilometres walking trail which runs through the north side of C Y O’Connor Lake is also worth exploring.
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Australia