Whispering Wall, Adelaide

Should you have your own transport; give the Barossa Valley a go. It's a great wine growing area so you may well be there for winetasting. If you have an hour to spare take a picknick hamper and have a look at the whispering wall. It is amazing how you can hear even whispered words from one end of the dam to the other.

Took a day-tour into the Barossa Valley via Prime Mini Tours. It was A$48 each circa 2001.

This was the last stop of the day at the Barossa Reservoir where we got to see this acoustic engineering feat. The 140m curved retaining wall of the Barossa Reservoir creates an acoustic phenomenon that carries messages whispered at one end audibly to the other end.

There we have, a busload of people, running to & fro at the top of the wall, trying to listen to the whispers of our friends on the other end. And I tell you, it really worked!

When you come to Adelaide, a visit to the Whispering Wall is a must!!. Th e Barossa Reservoir was first started in 1899.. It was once known to be the highest dam in Australia.
It was fed from the hills from the Para River.The dam wall is concrete, and has a 10 metre base,which tapers up to just the width of a walking path. It is 144 metres long.
If you go to one end of the wall, and a friend is at the other end, you can have a conversation and hear them perfectly, even at a whisper.
This is due to the fact that the wall is in the shape of part of a perfectly shaped circle. Sound waves then bounce along the wall in a series of straight jumps. This allows the voices to be heard perfectly.
Take a picnic, as the grounds around the dam are delightful.

Completed in 1902, the Barossa Reservoir was one of the first true concrete dams to be built in the world and was considered an innovation in modern dam engineering. Standing 36m high, the dam retains up to 4510 mega litres of water with a waterspread area of 62 hectares.

Widely know as the "Whispering Wall", the dam has surprising acoustical properties. Sounds at one end can be heard clearly at the other end. Its curved slender shape and quiet location induces conditions that contirbute to the transmission of sound. Straight line sound waves reflect obliquely off the wall as they travel 140 meters to the other end.

Story has it that the Whispering wall's unique ability was discovered one day when a workman constructing the dam was on the far side, and his boss on the near side.
The workman was verbally complaining to a colleague about his boss, who happened to easily hear everything even though he was so far from the speaker.
Don't know what happened to the worker after that!

Here is the Wispering Wall. By this wall can you speak and when you stand at one side the person at the othe side can here you alsoo when you speak soft.