00:00Lake Jindabyne is currently only about half full, the lowest it's been for many years.
00:07The water level is so low that parts of the old town, flooded in 1967 as part of the snowy hydro scheme,
00:14are beginning to emerge, including these steps to the former Catholic church that stood atop a hill in old Jindabyne
00:22until it was demolished ahead of the filling of the lake.
00:26Now there's a long-standing story that the church spire was left standing, but as you can see, that's just a myth.
00:35All that's left is some rubble and these steps.
00:39So what else lurks under the water of Lake Jindabyne?
00:44According to cave diver Sean Elliott, quite a lot.
00:47And he should know, for he's undertaken over 10 dives into the lake's murky depths.
00:53One of Sean's favourite dive sites is the former truss bridge that carried traffic across the snowy river for over 70 years,
01:01or at least what's left of the bridge.
01:05With the old town moved to higher ground and the lake filling, in June 1967, just before the bridge was submerged,
01:11the army blew it up as part of a training exercise.
01:16The explosion left three platypus stunned, which were rescued and luckily relocated by a local.
01:23Today, on the bottom of the lake, if you know where to look, like Sean does,
01:27you can still see the splintered remains or ruins of that bridge.
01:34Sean and his diving mates have also logged several dives on old homesteads,
01:39including Sunnybrae, where they looked down old chimneys,
01:42peeked through its open windows and swam through the former kitchen.
01:47Check out that old Canberra-branded wood stove.
01:50It really is another world down there, a former town submerged forever in an aquatic time capsule.
02:00Who knows what else may emerge if water levels continue to recede.
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