![Lake Tyers, Gippsland Lakes, Victoria, Australia](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/Lake_Tyers%2C_Gippsland_Lakes%2C_Victoria%2C_Australia.jpg)
The Gippsland Lakes are a network of coastal
lake
A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much large ...
s,
marsh
A marsh is a wetland that is dominated by herbaceous rather than woody plant species.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p Marshes can often be found at ...
es and
lagoon
A lagoon is a shallow body of water separated from a larger body of water by a narrow landform, such as reefs, barrier islands, barrier peninsulas, or isthmuses. Lagoons are commonly divided into ''coastal lagoons'' (or ''barrier lagoons'') a ...
s in
East Gippsland
East Gippsland is the eastern region of Gippsland, Victoria, Australia covering 31,740 square kilometres (14%) of Victoria. It has a population of 80,114.
Australian Bureau of Statistics2006 Census Community Profile Series: East Gippsland (Sta ...
,
Victoria
Victoria most commonly refers to:
* Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia
* Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada
* Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory
* Victoria, Seychelle ...
,
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
covering an overall area of about between the rural towns of
Lakes Entrance
Lakes Entrance is a seaside resort and fishing port in eastern Victoria, Australia. It is situated approximately east of Melbourne, near a managed, artificial channel connecting the Gippsland Lakes to Bass Strait. At the 2016 census, Lakes Ent ...
,
Bairnsdale
Bairnsdale () ( Ganai: ''Wy-yung'') is a city in East Gippsland, Victoria, Australia in a region traditionally owned by the Tatungalung clan of the Gunaikurnai people.
The estimated population of Bairnsdale urban area was 15,411 at Ju ...
and
Sale. The largest of the lakes are Lake Wellington (
Gunai language
The Gunaikurnai or Gunai/Kurnai ( ) language, also spelt Gunnai, Kurnai, Ganai, Gaanay, or Kurnay ) is an Australian Aboriginal dialect cluster of the Gunaikurnai people in Gippsland in south-east Victoria. Bidawal was either a divergent di ...
: ''Murla''), Lake King (Gunai: ''Ngarrang'')
and Lake Victoria (Gunai: ''Toonallook'').
The lakes are collectively fed by the
Avon,
Thomson Thomson may refer to:
Names
* Thomson (surname), a list of people with this name and a description of its origin
* Thomson baronets, four baronetcies created for persons with the surname Thomson
Businesses and organizations
* SGS-Thomson Mic ...
,
Latrobe,
Mitchell
Mitchell may refer to:
People
*Mitchell (surname)
*Mitchell (given name)
Places Australia
* Mitchell, Australian Capital Territory, a light-industrial estate
* Mitchell, New South Wales, a suburb of Bathurst
* Mitchell, Northern Territo ...
,
Nicholson
Nicholson may refer to:
People
*Nicholson (name), a surname, and a list of people with the name
Places Australia
* Nicholson, Victoria
* Nicholson, Queensland
* Nicholson County, New South Wales
* Nicholson River (disambiguation)
* Nicholson ...
and
Tambo Rivers, and drain into the
Bass Strait
Bass Strait () is a strait separating the island state of Tasmania from the Australian mainland (more specifically the coast of Victoria, with the exception of the land border across Boundary Islet). The strait provides the most direct waterwa ...
through a short
canal
Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flow un ...
about southwest of Lakes Entrance
town centre
A town centre is the commercial or geographical centre or core area of a town. Town centres are traditionally associated with shopping or retail. They are also the centre of communications with major public transport hubs such as train or bus s ...
.
History
The Gippsland Lakes were formed by two principal processes. The first is
river delta
A river delta is a landform shaped like a triangle, created by deposition (geology), deposition of sediment that is carried by a river and enters slower-moving or stagnant water. This occurs where a river enters an ocean, sea, estuary, lake, res ...
alluvial
Alluvium (from Latin ''alluvius'', from ''alluere'' 'to wash against') is loose clay, silt, sand, or gravel that has been deposited by running water in a stream bed, on a floodplain, in an alluvial fan or beach, or in similar settings. Alluv ...
deposition of sediment brought in by the rivers which flow into the lakes. Silt deposited by this process forms into long jetties which can run many kilometres into a lake, as exemplified by the
Mitchell River silt jetties
The Mitchell River silt jetties are an unusually long, thin landform in the Gippsland Lakes region in Victoria
Victoria most commonly refers to:
* Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia
* Victoria, British Columbia, prov ...
that run into Lake King. The second process is the
action of sea current in Bass Strait which created the
Ninety Mile Beach and cut off the river deltas from the sea.
Once the lakes were closed off a new cycle started, whereby the water level of the lakes would gradually rise until the waters broke through the
barrier beach
Barrier islands are coastal landforms and a type of dune system that are exceptionally flat or lumpy areas of sand that form by wave and tidal action parallel to the mainland coast. They usually occur in chains, consisting of anything from a ...
and the level would drop down until it equalised with sea-level. Eventually the beach would close-off the lakes and the cycle would begin anew. Sometimes it would take many years before a new channel to the sea was formed and not necessarily in the same place as the last one.
In 1889, a wall was built to fix the position of a naturally occurring channel between the lakes and the ocean at
Lakes Entrance
Lakes Entrance is a seaside resort and fishing port in eastern Victoria, Australia. It is situated approximately east of Melbourne, near a managed, artificial channel connecting the Gippsland Lakes to Bass Strait. At the 2016 census, Lakes Ent ...
, to stabilise the water level, create a harbour for fishing boats and open up the lakes to shipping. This entrance needs to be dredged regularly, or the same process that created the Gippsland Lakes would render the entrance too shallow for seagoing vessels to pass through.
Due to flooding in 2011, Gippsland Lakes experienced blooms of bioluminescent ''
Noctiluca scintillans
''Noctiluca scintillans'' is a marine life, marine species of dinoflagellate that can exist in a green or red form, depending on the pigmentation in its vacuoles. It can be found cosmopolitan distribution, worldwide, but its geographical species ...
''.
Overview
Tourism
The Gippsland Lakes provide a major hub for tourism, particularly for recreational boating and fishing enthusiasts. The lakes network can be explored by cruise, water taxi, or boat and kayak hire. On the fringes of the lakes are several tourist towns that swell to support the tourist trade, particularly in the summer months.
Lakes Entrance
Lakes Entrance is a seaside resort and fishing port in eastern Victoria, Australia. It is situated approximately east of Melbourne, near a managed, artificial channel connecting the Gippsland Lakes to Bass Strait. At the 2016 census, Lakes Ent ...
is the largest of the towns on the lakes with a population of 4,500. The town is well serviced with resorts, hotels and facilities. It is located with easy access to both the lakes network and the surf beach on
Ninety Mile Beach, which is patrolled each summer.
Metung
Metung is a town in Gippsland#East Gippsland, East Gippsland region of Victoria, Australia, Victoria, Australia. The town is east of the state capital Melbourne and between the larger towns of Bairnsdale and Lakes Entrance. It is on a small peni ...
is a small village located on the tip of a peninsula sitting in the Gippsland Lakes, surrounded almost completely by water. It is an upmarket tourist destination with many dining options and artisan galleries.
Much of
Paynesville’s accommodation and infrastructure are located on the network of canals. One of the key attractions is
Raymond Island, known for its koala population.
The diversity of the brine waters of the lakes, surf beaches along Ninety Mile Beach and fresh water streams that feed the lakes, make the Gippsland Lakes a popular fishing destination. Local fish varieties include bream, mullet, flathead, luderick and trevally. Paynesville, Lakes Entrance and Metung all offer a number of jetties, boat ramps and berthing facilities.
Environment
The lakes support numerous species of wildlife and there exist two protected areas within:
The Lakes National Park
The Lakes National Park is a national park in the East Gippsland region of Victoria, Australia. The national park is located approximately east of the capital city of Melbourne.
Location and features
The park is set on the east shore of the ...
and Gippsland Lakes Coastal Park. The Gippsland Lakes wetlands are protected by the international
Ramsar Convention
The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially as Waterfowl Habitat is an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of Ramsar sites (wetlands). It is also known as the Convention on Wetlands. It i ...
on wetlands. There are also approximately 400 indigenous flora species and 300 native fauna species. Three plants, two of them being
orchid
Orchids are plants that belong to the family Orchidaceae (), a diverse and widespread group of flowering plants with blooms that are often colourful and fragrant.
Along with the Asteraceae, they are one of the two largest families of flowering ...
species, are listed as endangered. The numbers of
southern right whale
The southern right whale (''Eubalaena australis'') is a baleen whale, one of three species classified as right whales belonging to the genus ''Eubalaena''. Southern right whales inhabit oceans south of the Equator, between the latitudes of 20 ...
s and
humpback whale
The humpback whale (''Megaptera novaeangliae'') is a species of baleen whale. It is a rorqual (a member of the family Balaenopteridae) and is the only species in the genus ''Megaptera''. Adults range in length from and weigh up to . The hu ...
s using the Lake Entrance area show increases in recent years, as the populations have started to recover from illegal hunts by the Soviet Union with help from Japan in 1960s-1970s.
Burrunan dolphins
The lakes are home to about 50 of the recently described species of
bottlenose dolphin
Bottlenose dolphins are aquatic mammals in the genus ''Tursiops.'' They are common, cosmopolitan members of the family Delphinidae, the family of oceanic dolphins. Molecular studies show the genus definitively contains two species: the common ...
, the
Burrunan dolphin
The Burrunan dolphin (''Tursiops australis'') is a species of bottlenose dolphin found in parts of Victoria, Australia first described in 2011. Its exact taxonomy is debated: numerous studies support it as being a separate species within the genu ...
(''Tursiops australis''). The other 150 or so of this rare species are to be found in
Port Phillip
Port Phillip ( Kulin: ''Narm-Narm'') or Port Phillip Bay is a horsehead-shaped enclosed bay on the central coast of southern Victoria, Australia. The bay opens into the Bass Strait via a short, narrow channel known as The Rip, and is com ...
.
Birds
The wetlands provide habitat for about 20,000 waterbirds – including birds from as far afield as
Siberia
Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...
and
Alaska
Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...
. The lakes have been identified by
BirdLife International
BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding ...
as an
Important Bird Area
An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations.
IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Int ...
(IBA) because they regularly support over 1% of the global populations of
black swan
The black swan (''Cygnus atratus'') is a large waterbird, a species of swan which breeds mainly in the southeast and southwest regions of Australia. Within Australia, the black swan is nomadic, with erratic migration patterns dependent upon c ...
s,
chestnut teal
The chestnut teal (''Anas castanea'') is a dabbling duck found in Australia. It is protected under the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974.
Taxonomy
The chestnut teal was described by the English naturalist Thomas Campbell Eyton in 1838 under ...
s and
musk duck
The musk duck (''Biziura lobata'') is a highly aquatic, stiff-tailed duck native to southern Australia. It is the only living member of the genus '' Biziura''. An extinct relative, the New Zealand musk duck or de Lautour's duck (''B. delauto ...
s, as well as many
fairy tern
The fairy tern (''Sternula nereis'') is a small tern which is native to the southwestern Pacific. It is listed as " Vulnerable" by the IUCN and the New Zealand subspecies is " Critically Endangered".
There are three subspecies:
* Australian fai ...
s.
Photo
See also
*
Banksia Swamp
Banksia Swamp is a swamp in Victoria, Australia. It is located within the Gippsland Lakes complex.
The name refers to the plant genus ''Banksia
''Banksia'' is a genus of around 170 species in the plant family Proteaceae. These Australian wil ...
*
Gippsland Lakes Coastal Park
The Gippsland Lakes Coastal Park is a coastal park in the East Gippsland region of Victoria, Australia. The park is located approximately east of the capital city of Melbourne.
Location and features
The park was established in April 1979 and ...
References
External links
*
Official East Gippsland tourism websiteGippsland Lakes Coastal Parkwebpage at
Parks Victoria
Parks Victoria is a government agency of the state of Victoria, Australia.
Parks Victoria was established in December 1996 as a statutory authority, reporting to the Victorian Minister for Environment and Climate Change. The ''Parks Victoria Ac ...
Gippsland Coastal Board The Lakes National Park & Gippsland Lakes Coastal Park PlanGippsland Ports Authoritywebsite
Gippsland Lakes Ministerial Advisory Committeewebsite
*
{{Ramsar sites in Australia
Lakes of Victoria (Australia)
Ramsar sites in Australia
Regions of Victoria (Australia)
Important Bird Areas of Victoria (Australia)
East Gippsland
Places with bioluminescence