Mulu farm grew a lot of fruit, strawberries plumbs and some peaches. Throughout the dry season they needed watering. We had two dams on the Alaltu river, one irrigated the fruit on the farm. The other irrigated the coffee down the valley and also provided water for our bungalow and Kusai. These two dams were just for irrigation and not drinking water. For drinking water at Mulu we had a spring which was fenced off so that only drinking water was used from it. It formed a small pool which we fenced off and simply had a pipe leading off it which we fed into clean buckets and carried up into the house. The surplus water ran on down a canal and watered some soft fruit and salad plants. It also watered some quince bushes, these were used for making quince jelly. The other fruit was either eaten fresh or used for jam making.
The dams were made from grass and earth blocks. These would get washed away in the big rains so had to be rebuilt each year. The canals leading off from the dams were run off at a slight slope which initially was levelled with a spirit level, and later by something else which was more accurate and faster to do. I cannot remember the slope we used but it was sufficient for the water to flow down it but not so steep that the water overflowed the banks. People living near the canal, (mostly the farm workforce) were allowed to use the water from the canals but no other people. This used to be organised by the gardeners of the various fruit. The second dam on the River Alaltu led a canal all the way down the escarpment to water the citrus fruit down there in the valley which was 15,000 ft to Kasai.
We remember one time that Janet nearly drowned as she fell off the edge of the dam, Piers realised what was happening and jumped in and pulled her out and saved her life.