The image above is a beautiful scene which at first glimpse simply captures a pleasant day out and about on the water, yet the setting for this relaxing day is one of the many magnificent feats of engineering which are to be found in our stunning national parks. Burrinjuck Dam, or Barren Jack Weir as it was once known, and as it is described on the postcard above, is just one of these.

Burrinjuck Dam is a dam on the Murrumbidgee River, and is about 60 kilometres from Yass. Today, the dam is marketed as a popular area for bushwalking, camping and water sports, a tourist attraction in itself, yet in 1906, when construction of the Dam began, the scheme was created for an extremely different audience. The dam was the first in NSW to be built specifically to provide water for irrigation of farms, and provided water to the government sponsored Murrumbidgee Irrigation Scheme. The scheme allowed the Murrumbidgee Valley to develop as a thriving agricultural centre, producing everything from fruit to rice. At the time when the dam was built, it was the fourth largest dam in the world. In 1911 the name Barren Jack, which the dam was originally known as, was changed to Burrinjuck, an Aboriginal word used for the area. Due to interruptions caused to construction by World War 1, the dam was not completed until 1928, but even before completion, there had been two major floods which proved the viability of the scheme.

Today, between Burrinjuck and Blowering Dams (the latter of which is near Tumut), the Murrumbidge is able to provide for the irrigation needs of the Murrumbidgee Valley and the area is responsible for providing NSW with a huge proportion of our fruit, vegetables and rice.