Lake Tyrrell (also known as Lake Tyrrell Wildlife Reserve) is a shallow,

salt Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in the form of a natural crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quant ...

-crusted depression in the Mallee district of north-west Victoria, in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

. The name 'Tyrrell' is derived from the local Wergaia word for 'sky', the Boorong Aboriginal people of the area being distinguished for their interest in star-lore. The Boorong, with their astronomical traditions, told stories connected with constellations in the night sky. In the mid-2010s, the lake became a tourist mecca, particularly for Chinese. It is a popular location for photographers and social media users, who take snaps of the lake's mirror-like surface during winter, when ground water percolates to the surface and inflows arrive from the

Avoca River The Avoca River, an inland intermittent river of the northcentral catchment, part of the Murray-Darling basin, is located in the lower Riverina bioregion and Central Highlands and Wimmera regions of the Australian state of Victoria. The head ...

/Tyrrell Creek system. Lake Tyrrell 1

During dry periods, people can walk on to the lake area by using places where salt has formed a solid surface. Lake Tyrrell salt

Location and features

The lake covers approximately ,Advance Sea Lake Inc.
, 2013
/ref> making it Victoria's largest

salt lake A salt lake or saline lake is a landlocked body of water that has a concentration of salts (typically sodium chloride) and other dissolved minerals significantly higher than most lakes (often defined as at least three grams of salt per litre) ...

. It is located north of the town of

Sea Lake Sea Lake is a town in the Mallee district of north-west Victoria, Australia and is situated on the southern shores of Lake Tyrrell. The town is located on the Calder Highway, north-west of Melbourne, and west of Swan Hill. Sea Lake is in th ...

and northwest of

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/ Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a metro ...

. While much of the time the lake is dry, it is usually covered in about of water in winter.Jochen Brocks' Biogeochemistry Group ANU
It is ancient, and probably formed by sand blocking the passage of Tyrrell Creek, a

distributary A distributary, or a distributary channel, is a stream that branches off and flows away from a main stream channel. Distributaries are a common feature of river deltas. The phenomenon is known as river bifurcation. The opposite of a distributar ...

of the Avoca River, which feeds the lake.

Evaporation Evaporation is a type of vaporization that occurs on the surface of a liquid as it changes into the gas phase. High concentration of the evaporating substance in the surrounding gas significantly slows down evaporation, such as when h ...

results in a layer of salt crusting on the lake bed, which is harvested by Cheetham Salt in

. The lake environment is host to Mallee

reptiles Reptiles, as most commonly defined are the animals in the class Reptilia ( ), a paraphyletic grouping comprising all sauropsids except birds. Living reptiles comprise turtles, crocodilians, squamates ( lizards and snakes) and rhynchoceph ...

kangaroo Kangaroos are four marsupials from the family Macropodidae (macropods, meaning "large foot"). In common use the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, the red kangaroo, as well as the antilopine kangaroo, eastern ...

s, emus, and the white-fronted chat, an insectivorous bird. Thousands of

seagull Gulls, or colloquially seagulls, are seabirds of the family Laridae in the suborder Lari. They are most closely related to the terns and skimmers and only distantly related to auks, and even more distantly to waders. Until the 21st century, ...

s breed on small islands on the lake. Surrounding vegetation is made up of

saltbush Saltbush is a vernacular plant name that most often refers to ''Atriplex'', a genus of about 250 plants distributed worldwide from subtropical to subarctic regions. ''Atriplex'' species are native to Australia, North and South America, and Eurasia. ...

and

samphire Samphire is a name given to a number of succulent salt-tolerant plants ( halophytes) that tend to be associated with water bodies. *Rock samphire, ''Crithmum maritimum'' is a coastal species with white flowers that grows in Ireland, the Uni ...

, which supports a range of wildlife. To the east, the

lunette A lunette (French ''lunette'', "little moon") is a half-moon shaped architectural space, variously filled with sculpture, painted, glazed, filled with recessed masonry, or void. A lunette may also be segmental, and the arch may be an arc taken ...

contains significant Aboriginal relics.

History

Around 120,000 years ago, Tyrrell was approximately deep with low salinity. Water levels subsequently dropped due to climatic changes, resulting in cycles of drying and partial refilling. In 1838, the explorer

Edward Eyre Edward John Eyre (5 August 181530 November 1901) was an English land explorer of the Australian continent, colonial administrator, and Governor of Jamaica. Early life Eyre was born in Whipsnade, Bedfordshire, shortly before his family moved to ...

was the first non-indigenous person to document Lake Tyrrell, while searching for new grazing land.

Recreation activities

Each year, on the Queen's Birthday long weekend, the lake hosts the Mallee Rally, once part of the

Australian Off Road Championship Australian Off Road Championship (AORC) is an off-road-based rally Rally or rallye may refer to: Gatherings * Demonstration (political), a political rally, a political demonstration of support or protest, march, or parade * Pep rally, an ...

and, more recently, Australian Off Road Racing Series. On the Sea Lake side of the lake, from the township, is a lookout and astronomy deck, built in the late 1990s.

References

*
''Encyclopædia Britannica'' entry about Lake Tyrrell.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tyrell Tyrrell Mallee (Victoria)