Mannus Lake Campsite

22 May

Closest Town: Tumbarumba

Toilets: Yes - pit toilets

Water: Yes, the lake

Includes: Covered seating, campsites and fish cleaning facilities.

Cost: Free, no booking required

Access: Mannus Lake / Mannus Lake is 10kms south-west of Tumbarumba, accessed via Jingellic Road, Mannus Forest Rd to Mannus Lake Road or Jingellic Rd straight to Mannus Lake Rd. Follow to the campground on the lake.

Mannus Lake is located in the Mannus State Forest, 16.5km south of Henry Angel Trackhead and only 10km by car from Tumbarumba on Mannus Lake Road. It offers waterfront camping with beautiful views over the lake and is popular with car campers, caravanners and day trippers to the Lake.

Nathan Giles Gitchell, who was involved with the gold mining on Burra Creek, had a similar operation on Mannus Creek where he was one of the first miners to use dynamite to blast through rock. To divert the creek so its bed could be mined, he cut a large tunnel, well over 200 metres long, through a hill. Over 100 years later, Ellis Williams, the owner of the same piece of land, built a dam across Mannus Creek so the impounded water could be directed through Gitchell’s tunnel. The volume and velocity of the water was sufficient to power a small hydro-electric plant.

In October 2010 severe flooding in the area led to the collapse of the Mannus Lake dam wall. The area was a popular recreational spot and the then owners of the land and dam, Tumbarumba Shire Council, obtained a grant to rebuild the dam wall. The new wall of the dam that is present today was opened in February 2015, nearly four and a half years after it was washed away.