Back in the car, I half-expect to see a bagpiper in a kilt to emerge from the mist around the next corner, belting out a rendition of Scotland the Brave. But this isn't Loch Ness, nor any other faraway waterway squirreled away in the wilds of northern Scotland. No, I'm at Burrinjuck Dam, just 40 crow-flying kilometres over the ranges to the north-west of Canberra.

The comparison with my last visit to the man-made dam in 2016 couldn't be starker. It was at the height of drought then, and low water levels had exposed a wide barren foreshore, devoid of any vegetation. Ubiquitous blowflies were annoying, and the searing sun was burning. It was a hell on Earth.

Yet today, with the dam full to the brim, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. Above, below and on both sides of the snaking bitumen, water cascades out of ephemeral waterfalls and there are no flies to be seen or heard. Increasing patches of fog conceal what lies ahead. Will it be a forest of giant southern blue gums, or perhaps another tantalising glimpse of the dam (which really should be called a lake, especially when it's so hauntingly alluring)?

While I've explored the southern foreshore of the lake from Wee Jasper many times; searching for suspected meteorite craters, creeping up on bent-wing bats in caves, or simply lying in my swag and counting the stars, today is my first visit to the ghost town of Barren Jack City, on the more remote western side. And I can't think of a more atmospheric day to be here.

The temporary city, more accurately described as an isolated outpost, was built into the side of a hill to house hundreds of workers during the construction of the dam, which commenced in 1907. There was also a public hall, bank, library, hospital, fire brigade and even a school.

As the water levels began to rise, buildings were salvaged and either moved off-site or dragged up the hill to higher ground. However, due the overzealous demolishers at WaterNSW, the state government statutory corporation which manages the dam and its immediate surrounds, many of these structures have subsequently been lost forever.

Thankfully there are some relics of the once thriving village, a handful of buildings that continue to be maintained - homes for a handful of WaterNSW staff and a couple of private leases. Some sport emotive names, like Bonnie Doon and Rainbow Retreat, the latter a not-so-subtle nod to the much-lauded trout fishing in the lake. Anglers have also snared 50-kilogram Murray cod here, and local legend says that a monster-sized cod, the "Beast of Burrinjuck", lurks in one of the lake's deepest pools.

For the day tripper, a must-see is the 233-metre-long dam wall which, for safety reasons, can only be viewed from the far end of the village, at the end of Burrinjuck Road. It's a pity there's no interpretative panel with photographs of the daredevil cableway that was erected across the spillway face during construction to ferry workers and materials from one side to the other. Heck, modern-day OH&S officers would have a heart attack!

It's also disappointing there's no tribute to the nine workmen who, on October 9, 1950, after heavy rains and while attempting to open the spillway, plunged to their deaths after a platform collapsed unexpectedly.

Still at the dam wall lookout, I holler a cooee out across the water and wait for a response, perhaps from another sightseer or a worker. But there's no answer. Just a faint echo returns from the opposite side of the gorge.

Driving back through the village, I can't help but wonder what it would be like to live here. Sure, it would have its challenges, especially during high winds when trees tumble across the road with monotonous regularity (lucky, I was carrying a chain saw), but being surrounded by such a dramatic landscape would also have its charms.

One lady who did call this ghost village home is Rowena Hobart, whose husband Mark Dyball worked as an electrician on the dam in the early 2000s.

"Morning coffee looking out over the dam was divine, so too sunrise and sunset," reveals Rowena, adding "even when levels got down to just a few per cent, it was fun to explore the original riverbed and remnants of the submerged village."

While Mark especially enjoyed summers when you "could fish and water ski from your back door", winter wasn't so enticing.

"It was often foggy all day, and on average, the workshop at the dam wall would see about an hour of sun - and that was on a good day."

As for the couple's take on the Burrinjuck Beast? "On foggy nights some of Mark's mates heard a sad moaning cry, which they reckon was the so-called beast surfacing for air" muses Rowena, adding "but luckily we never heard it".

Discover the magic of Burrinjuck before the waters recede, and if you visit on a cool wet summer's day like I did, I guarantee this forgotten village will weave its magic on you too.

Getting there: Burrinjuck Village is on Burrinjuck Road, about a one-hour-45-minute drive from Canberra. The last 20-kilometre descent to the village is steep, windy, and has some one-way sections, so take care.

Dam stats: Burrinjuck Dam has a capacity of 1026GL (that's about 31 Lake Burley Griffins) and is the main water storage for the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Scheme, a 660,000-hectare area in the NSW Riverina. The dam also provides water for town supplies, environmental flows, flood mitigation and recreation, and boasts a 28-megawatt hydroelectric power station. When construction began in 1907, it was the fourth-largest dam in the world. Due to delays during World War I, the dam wasn't completed to its original design until 1928.

Forgotten railway: Building materials were transported to the building site, a steep gorge on the Murrumbidgee River, via a wood-burning locomotive on a narrow-gauge railway line which connected to the main southern line at Goondah, south of Yass. Once the dam was completed, the line was removed. Today, the main road through the village essentially follows this route.

It's all in a name: Barren Jack is a corruption of the Aboriginal name Booren Yiack (meaning "mountain with rugged top") for the 972-metre mountain that rises above the dam wall. The village was renamed Burrinjuck in 1911.

Did you know: St Saviour's Church is thought to be the only surviving relic of the long-submerged Barren Jack City. It was built near the bottom of the valley in 1906, and in the 1920s, as the dam filled, was hauled up the hill to its current position. When photographer Ray McJannett visited the church in 2019, he reported to the Yass Tribune that "the minister's robes and prayer books are still in their place. It's as if one day nobody turned up." Unfortunately, due to recent storm damage, the church is no longer safe to visit.

Rating: Medium

Clue: Seal of approval

Last week: Everyone thought last week's whale bones were on display at either the Eden Killer Whale Museum or the Jervis Bay Maritime Museum in Huskisson. However, the bones are actually part of an exhibit at the little-known Tathra Wharf Museum, which is housed above the café in the top floor of the Tathra Wharf and open 10am to 3pm on weekends only. Sure, it's an old-school museum, but it's crammed with maritime treasures of the far South Coast, and a great place to visit on a wet (or dry!) day at the coast.

How to enter: Email your guess along with your name and suburb to tym@iinet.net.au. The first correct email sent after 10am, Saturday January 1, 2022, wins a double pass to Dendy, the Home of Quality Cinema.

The locality of Burrinjuck includes part of one of the proposed sites for Australia's national capital, which was known as Mahkoolma, located in the upper reaches of Carrolls Creek.

However, after a group of federal parliamentarians, who inspected the site on August 11, 1906, were left with such a poor impression of the location, its chance of being our capital quickly vaporised.

So, what happened? Well, from all reports it was a cold and wet winter's day, the convoy of vehicles got bogged several times, and when they finally arrived at the site, two hours late, the marquee which had been erected for their lunch had blown down. Not a good look.

After munching on damp sandwiches in soaking wet clothes, one prominent member of the House of Representatives was quoted saying, "I consider that this visit must have been a practical joke, or else those who invited us did not know the locality."

Earlier this week, I noticed this touched-up surveyor's blaze in a tree just near where a tributary of Carrolls Creek crosses the Burrinjuck Road. I wonder if the original blaze was somehow connected to the proposed national capital site. Someone must know.