Golden Pipeline

National Trust of WA

Explore The Golden Pipeline Heritage Trail

A self-guided drive trail between the Perth Hills and Western Australia’s Eastern Goldfields. Go with the Flow. Follow the water to discover more about the audacious goldfields water supply scheme and Engineer CY O’Connor.

Discover The people and the Scheme

“Future generations, I am quite certain will think of us and bless us for our far seeing patriotism, and it will be said of us, as Isaiah said of old, ‘They made a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert” – Sir John Forrest

The Scheme Reservoirs

Storage reservoirs

Mundaring Weir is the storage reservoir at the start of the pipeline with Mount Charlotte nearly 600 km east the original storage reservoir at the end. It is worth noting that Mundaring Weir no longer functions as simply a storage reservoir for rain.

Thanks to our drying climate, the supply in it is augmented by desalinated water. And, Mount Charlotte is no longer the sole reservoir for water delivered via the scheme. Nearby Mount Percy, which can be seen from Mount Charlotte, has become a storage reservoir too.

West of Kalgoorlie-Boulder at Binduli (the site of a stop on the original Eastern Railway), an enormous storage tank has been built to safeguard the water supply for the goldfields.

You may also notice a modern huge above ground storage tank slightly east of No 6 Pump Station at Ghooli, again built to ensure a reliable supply of water.  In the original scheme Toorak Tank at Coolgardie and a much larger one at Bullabulling served as storage reservoirs, the latter being the main distributing reservoir.

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