Lake Eildon National Park

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Lake Eildon National Park
IUCN Category II (National Park)

Nearest town/city:	Eildon
Coordinates:	37°07′46″S, 145°52′08″E
Area:	277.5 km²
Managing authorities:	Parks Victoria
Official site:	Lake Eildon National Park

Lake Eildon National Park is a national park in Victoria (Australia) in the northern foothills of Victoria's Central Highlands, 111 km northeast of Melbourne. The 27,750 ha park abuts the shores of Lake Eildon.

1 History
- 1.1 Cultural Heritage
2 Geology
3 Flora
4 Fauna
5 Visitors
6 See also

In the 1950s, the Victorian State 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 2670 ha that wasn’t inundanted was declared Fraser National Park in 1957. An area of 24,000 ha 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.

The Goulburn River Valley supported a population of hundreds of members of the Taungaurung Aboriginal 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.

The park is mountainous, with peaks up to 900m, and includes the edge of the Cerberean Caldera, a huge circular volcano around 27km across which was active around 380 million years ago. The caldera is evident in a few places as granite outcrops.

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 areas.

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.