There’s no electricity involved. A small leat (a French word that the heritage working group has informally adopted as Australian) diverts about 8 litres a second from Cement Creek into a wooden race that drops the water, controlled, onto the upper buckets of the 4.2-metre wheel. The wheel turns at about 6 rpm. The water rejoins the creek thirty metres further down.
It’s a quietly pleasing piece of mechanics. We have a working group, the Wheel Mechanics Volunteers, that meets the first Wednesday of every month. New members welcome — no engineering background required.