After days of anticipation Sydney's Warragamba Dam has finally reached 100 per cent capacity and water is spilling over the wall.
Just before 7pm (AEDT) on Friday, water began gushing down a 100m spillway into a pond below.
The pond acts as an energy dissipater, slowing the water before it flows down the Warragamba River to join the Hawkesbury-Nepean system.
Several kilometres away, the lookout observatory was packed with more than 100 spectators.
Some had been waiting there for more than five hours. "I came with my two boys to have a look," Ingrid Jouke from Glenmore Park said.
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"It looks so high and I didn't expect that I'd see these gates open," she said.
"I've heard this spill from the dam can potentially create misery for some people, but maybe they can control how much is released."
