Lake Eildon National Park
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The Lake Eildon National Park is a national park in the Central Highlands region of Victoria, Australia. The Template:Convert national park is set in the northern foothills of the Central Highlands, approximately Template:Convert northeast of Melbourne and abuts the shores of Lake Eildon.
History
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The Goulburn River Valley supported a population of hundreds of members of the Aboriginal Australian group known as the Taungurung people. Cultural sites belonging to these people would have been flooded with the creation of Lake Eildon.
The park includes a number of mine shafts related to Victoria's gold rush of the 1860s. The park also contains relics from early pastoral use.
In the 1950s, the Victorian Government purchased farming properties along the Goulburn and Delatite rivers for the construction of Lake Eildon to provide irrigation water for the Goulburn Valley. An area of Template:Convert that wasn't flooded was declared Fraser National Park in 1957. An area of Template:Convert of state forest adjacent to the lake was reserved as Eildon State Park in 1980 to protect the catchment of Lake Eildon. In 1997, the two parks were combined to create Lake Eildon National Park.
Geology
[edit]The park is mountainous, with peaks up to Template:Convert, and includes the edge of the Cerberean Caldera, a Supervolcano around Template:Convert across which was active around 380 million years ago. The caldera is evident in a few places as granite outcrops. It is thought that the Cerberean Caldera underwent a super eruption 374 Mya, which in turn would have contributed to the Late Devonian extinction event.<ref name="Cerberean Caldera">Template:Cite book</ref>
Gold Mining
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The national park contains evidence of gold mining including many shallow diggings, shafts and adits.<ref name="The History of Fraser National Park by Ron Turner">Template:Cite book</ref> The most notable sites in the Fraser block are:
- Italian Gully, originally worked in the 1870's and then again in the 1930's.<ref name="Historic Gold Mining Sites In The North East Region Of Victoria">Template:Cite book</ref> This site consists of mine shafts, alluvial workings and the remains of a house and garden. Template:Coord
- Sunnyslopes Hut on Solferino (Sulphur) Reef, at the head of Italian and Mountaineer creeks.<ref name="North East Victoria Historic Mining Plots 1850-1982 Historic Notes">Template:Cite book</ref> This site consists of multiple shafts, ruins of a hut, a partially collapsed flooded adit and large mullock heaps. Template:Coord
Flora and Fauna
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The park's vegetation is generally dry, open eucalypt forest with areas of riparian forest and montane forest. Main eucalypt species are stringybarks, peppermints, Red Box and Candlebark with areas of Mountain Ash and Blue Gum.
The park's known native fauna includes 34 species of mammals, 89 birds, 17 reptiles, 10 amphibians, and three freshwater fish. Threatened fauna recorded in the park include the Brush-tailed Phascogale and Spotted Tree-Frog. Eastern Grey Kangaroos are very common in the park's camping places
After being hunted to extinction for their skins, in 1967 25 Koalas were reintroduced to the park from Phillip Island and released in the Devils Cove area.<ref name="The History of Fraser National Park by Ron Turner">Template:Cite book</ref>
Sambar Deer are also found throughout the park.
Cultural Sites
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There are numerous cultural sites in the National Park, demonstrating the areas past use for grazing and mining.
One of these is Stone's Outstation, located on Station Creek near Aird Inlet.
Location
[edit]Lake Eildon National Park is non-contiguous and consists of five 'blocks'<ref name=>Parks VicTemplate:Cite web</ref> merged together in June 1997 to create a single national park. They are:
From the former Eildon State Park:
- Enterprise - located in the centre of Lake Eildon itself.
- Jamieson - located on the eastern side of the national park adjacent to the township of Jamieson.
- Jerusalem - located on the southern of the national park, named for Jerusalem Creek. It contains Jerusalem Creek camping area with pit toilets as well as O’Toole Flat and Taylors Creek which are nominally designated for deer hunters.
From the former Fraser National Park:
- Fraser - located on the western side of the national park, named for the former park. It is the most developed and contains three camping areas; Lakeside, Candlebark and Devil Cove, all of which feature flushing toilets, hot showers, drinking water and gas BBQs.
- Wappan - located on the north west side. It is the least developed with no public vehicle access.
Visitors
[edit]Most visitors use the park as a base for water-based activities on Lake Eildon, such as power boating and water ski-ing. Deer hunting is permitted in season in some sections of the park.
Mountaineer Inlet Boat Camp has no vehicle access and is for use for boaters and hikers only.