The Old Railway Dams
Last updated March 2008
The lower dam
The railway dams at the end of Reeves St, Narara, were built in 1887 to supply water for steam trains.
There are two railway dams in Fountains Creek. The lower dam is situated on top of a dramatic 20 metre waterfall.
The other dam is a short walk upstream and if you continue to follow the creek, you reach a pretty waterfall.
In addition to the natural beauty of this area, there are also some aboriginal rock engravings nearby.
Access to these historic and scenic dams has become difficult due to a new residental development at Lot 1, Reeves St, Somersby. This land,
which has been used by generations of bushwalkers to reach the dams, has now been completely fenced off.
There was an article about the Railway Dams in the Central Coast Express Advocate on 11th Sept 2003.
Here's a quote: "A popular bushwalking track which has been used for a century could be cut off by development".
The railway dams walk is described in the NPA's Bushwalks in the Sydney Region, Vol 2, in
an earlier publication by S.W.Pulsford called Bushwalking in the Gosford District, and also my own guidebook Discovering Gosford's Bushland on foot.
The dams are listed as items of environmental heritage by Gosford City Council.
A new route to the railway dams which does not involve crossing private property is shown below.
To reach the start of this route, you need to be at the Somersby end of Reeves St and walk about 80 metres west along the road past the last fenced property.
Then, leave the road near the power pole and follow the rock outcrop south-west, cross a small creek bed and then descend down the rocks to reach the creek which
feeds into the upper railway dam. Follow the track on the northern side of this creek to the wall of the upper railway dam and then follow the creek bed downstream
to the lower railway dam.
You can download a KML file of the new route, here, for use in Google Earth.
You can see the latest photos of the railway dams here.
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