The Making of "The Nepean" - Day 11
First Shown: 5 March 2019 on YouTube
I woke up today and it was overcast. Cloudy days often are good for evenly distributing sunlight and not creating shadows but it looked like it might rain. We went out anyway since the three locations today were close by.
First stop was the M4 Motorway across the Nepean near Penrith. We parked under the bridge on the eastern riverside and as soon as we started recording it began to rain. So we packed up and decided to have an early lunch and wait out the rain.
During lunch the rain stopped so afterwards instead of returning to the M4 we visited our second and third locations first as they were now closer. So, we aimed our vehicle towards Penrith Weir with Emu Ford, our third location, a little further on.
Penrith Weir was built because in 1888 the Nepean river had dropped over 1 metre due to the removal of stones, taken for road metal, at a natural dam below Victoria Bridge. Four years passed by before a weir was built but it was only a 'sandbag' weir that could only be temporary. The municipal council and the local press urged the Government for the construction of a permanent weir and in 1908 a permanent weir was constructed.
Emu Ford, our next stop, is now lost in time. There is now no physical evidence that it existed or even where it was. We obtained a photograph (included in this blog) that was taken from Emu Ford in 1958 by Allan Searle and from this photograph we located the ford. From looking at the photo we can see how much stone must have been removed by the 'Emu Gravel' quarry during those early years. It's hard to imagine the difficulties early supply wagons (photo included c. 1900) and coaches full of travellers endured, crossing the river here prior to the construction of Victoria Bridge.
After visiting these historical places we were thrust back into today by the wind and vehicle noise of the M4 Motorway. We did not go there to get shots of the M4 bridge but to record great views of the river from high above. This we did and another three locations along the Nepean's course were video'd for my documentary.
