The Mount Hypipamee Crater, also known as The Crater is a huge

diatreme A diatreme, sometimes known as a maar-diatreme volcano, is a volcanic pipe formed by a gaseous explosion. When magma rises up through a crack in Earth's crust and makes contact with a shallow body of groundwater, rapid expansion of heated wate ...

located south-east of

Herberton Herberton is a rural town and locality in the Tablelands Region, Queensland, Australia. In the , the locality of Herberton had a population of 855 people. Geography Herberton is on the Atherton Tableland in Far North Queensland. It is situa ...

on the

Atherton Tableland The Atherton Tableland is a fertile plateau which is part of the Great Dividing Range in Queensland, Australia. The principal river flowing across the plateau is the Barron River. It was dammed to form an irrigation reservoir named Lake Tina ...

Far North Queensland Far North Queensland (FNQ) is the northernmost part of the Australian state of Queensland. Its largest city is Cairns and it is dominated geographically by Cape York Peninsula, which stretches north to the Torres Strait, and west to the Gulf C ...

, Australia. It is 61 metres in diameter and 82 metres deep. It was first discovered by accident when in 1879 Weate and party nearly fell into it. They were heading towards the

Mulgrave River The Mulgrave River, incorporating the East Mulgrave River and the West Mulgrave River, is a river system located in Far North Queensland, Australia. The -long river flows towards the Coral Sea and is located approximately south of . Locatio ...

on a five-month

gold prospecting Gold prospecting is the act of searching for new gold deposits. Methods used vary with the type of deposit sought and the resources of the prospector. Although traditionally a commercial activity, in some developed countries placer gold prospe ...

expedition. The

national park A national park is a nature park, natural park in use for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes, created and protected by national governments. Often it is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state dec ...

was established in 1908 under the sponsorship of a Mr. Ringrose of

. There was a debate at the “crater trust” meetings during the 1930s as to what to call “the crater”, the "Herberton Crater" was one suggestion but it was decided to call it the traditional Dyrbal name, Mount Hypipamee. A request was written to

Ernest Gribble Ernest Richard Bulmer Gribble (23 November 186818 October 1957) was an Australian missionary. Though considered to be temperamentally unsuited to his vocation, he became a strong advocate for better treatment of Australian Aboriginal people, savin ...

of Palm Island to find the origin of the name. The name Hypipamee is a corruption of the Aboriginal word, nabbanabbamee, which is connected with a legend of two young men who cut down a sacred

candlenut tree ''Aleurites moluccanus'', the candlenut, is a flowering tree in the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae, also known as candleberry, Indian walnut, ''kemiri'', varnish tree, ''nuez de la India'', ''buah keras'', ''godou'', kukui nut tree, and ''rata ke ...

, only to be swallowed up by a large hole in the earth, the crater. The water surface is covered with

duck weed Lemnoideae is a subfamily of flowering aquatic plants, known as duckweeds, water lentils, or water lenses. They float on or just beneath the surface of still or slow-moving bodies of fresh water and wetlands. Also known as bayroot, they arose ...

Dinner Falls The Dinner Falls is a mix of three waterfalls that display plunge, segmented and cascade characteristics on the upper Barron River located in the Far North region of Queensland, Australia. Location and features The waterfall is located ap ...

at the head of the upper Barron River gorge is also part of this park. It was once thought that "The Crater", Lake Eacham and

Lake Barrine Lake Barrine is a freshwater lake on the eastern parts of Atherton Tableland in the locality of Lake Barrine, in the Tablelands Region of Far North Queensland, Australia, close to Lake Eacham. The lake and surrounds are protected within th ...

were all connected underground with water tunnels, but this is incorrect. Local legend once said that an aboriginal woman once fell over the side into the crater and later surfaced in Lake Eacham.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hypipamee Diatremes of Australia Volcanoes of Queensland Landforms of Far North Queensland Volcanic crater lakes

See also

References