LOCATION

Brogo Dam is about 23 km NNW of Bega. It is about 250 km from Canberra via Cooma and Brown Mountain and a little further via Batemans Bay. There are two points of access to the water. One is at the dam wall. The other on the eastern shore towards the northern end of the dam is known to the locals as the old riverview home site.

THE DAM WALL

Access is via Warrigal Range Road; a good quality unsealed road. The turnoff from the Princes Hwy is10 km N from its junction with the Snowy Mountains Hwy. The dam is 14 km from the turnoff.

There is a well set up picnic area with all facilities and a concrete launching ramp. However, there is no camping.

At the time of this writing (2006), the nearest camping is Brogo Wilderness Camping about 4 km from the dam wall. The entrance is off to the east a couple of kilometers back along Warrigal Range Road. There are two camping areas. One is a flat grassed area before the house. The other is a very pleasant area a little past the house with access to the Brogo River below the dam wall. In this spot the best camping is across a pedestrian bridge requiring gear to be carried about 30 m. There is a pit toilet. Canoes can be hired from Brogo Wilderness Canoes who I think manage the campsite . Indeed it is feasible to hire the canoes and paddle up to join the campers at the next location where we typically go.

THE OLD RIVERSIDE HOME SITE

A map of the area around the dam is attached. Please note that it only covers the last few kilometres into the area.

If travelling north on the Princes Hwy from the direction of Bega the turn off is at Quaama. The sign says Verona. About 4 km along this road there is a junction with Upper Brogo Road. Turn left to Lower Verona.

If travelling south on the Princes Highway from the direction of Batemans Bay the Upper Brogo Road turn off is 4 km before Quaama. In about another 4 km you will see the road coming in from Quaama on your left. Go straight ahead.

Whether you’ve come from Bega or from Bateman’s Bay you are now on the same stretch of road.

Point 1 on the map can be a bit confusing. A fire trail comes in at an angle almost behind you, crosses Upper Brogo Road and then continues on up the hill. It almost looks as though this is the main road. In the following diagram the road marked with the arrow is Upper Brogo Road.

Keep following the arrowed road until reaching a Y junction where there is a small sign "DAM" to the left (marked 2 on the attached map). Turn left.

This junction is about 17 km from the highway

Up to this point the road is quite good quality unsealed road. There are sections of minor corrugations mainly in the first eight kilometres or so and the road is fairly twisty with some descents.

Point 3 on the map is about 500 m from the Y junction. Here there are two gates. The right-hand gate leads to a private road. The track to the camp site is through the left gate. It is now only a little over a kilometre to go. This is now only a bush track with a short steepish descent at the start. I would nevertheless consider it suitable for a sedan with normal ground clearance. (Mind you some who know me consider I don’t have much respect for my vehicles).

The campsite (Point 4 on the map) is a quite large grassed area. A lot of it is gently sloped. There is only one level site at the dam edge, however, there are ample sites on the top of a gentle slope about 50 m from the dam, with a few under the trees. There are no facilities at all but plenty of black snakes.

ATTACHED MAP

The map here is an extract from Puen Buen. You can see the 'pointer' to Quaama on the right hand side of the map edge. Click here for a larger version. It is about 1.6 MByte. f you are using a later version of Internet Explorer, it may rescale on the screen - if so at the bottom right hand corner should be a button that will make the map life size - you may need to wiggle the mouse a bit

Scale is 1:25 000. The grid lines are at 1 km intervals.

For GPS users the grid is GDA 94. Most of us probably still use the old maps using AGD 66. If you do not have GDA 94 on your GPS menu use WGS 84 which is the same as GDA 94 to within about 10 cm.