Lakes Entrance Fishing

We have eight magnificent National Parks on our coast and in the high country- and that's more than any other region of Australia. The role-call includes the Alpine National Park (Victoria's biggest), the Snowy River National Park and the UNESCO- listed Croajingalong National Park that embraces 100 kilometres of coastline.

We have two of Australia's greatest driving routes. The Great Alpine Road, which winds through the Alpine National Park and Victoria's high country. The Sydney to Melbourne Coastal Drive, which in East Gippsland, starts at Croajingalong National Park and ends at the Gippsland Lakes.

And, with the country's biggest fishing port at Lakes Entrance, we're the fishing capital of Australia. (Just ask any serious recreational angler who's fished here.)

But we're also very well known for doing very little at all. You could book a lakeside apartment or canal villa with a boat moored at your private jetty, and never leave the waterways for your entire holiday. Or stay in a country inn way up in the clear mountain air of Victoria's alpine country and simply wander through the wildflowers. Just one step from heaven? We think so.

Lakes Entrance fishing (including Nowa Nowa)

Fed by five major rivers and linked by narrow channels, the great lakes of Gippsland cover 400 square kilometres and extend 90 km down the coast. These coastal lagoons were formed when the ocean's sand deposits created lengthy sandspits, low-lying sand islands and dunes which eventually formed a barrier (Ninety Mile Beach) separating Bass Strait from the calmer waters they enclosed. The rivers which flow into the area deposited silt and clay which divided the inland water into a series of lakes and swamps.

Two areas, covering 17 880 hectares, have been classified as national parkland - the Lakes National Park and the Gippsland Lakes Coastal Park. The region, known as the Victorian Riviera, is noted for its minimal variation in temperature the year round; being relatively warm in winter and cool in summer.

The original Aboriginal inhabitants of the area were of the Kurnai people. The Krauatungalung clan had two divisions - the Wurnungatti in the Lake Tyers area and the Brt-Hrita around Jemmy Point. Aboriginal legends about the formation of the lakes centre on a frog that once swallowed all of the world's water. The other animals united in their efforts to make the frog surrender the water by making it laugh. All deliberate attempts at humour failed but the sight of the eel upright on its tail caused hilarity and the subsequent outpouring of the waters is said to have created the lakes.

Angus McMillan was the first European to investigate the area, arriving at Lake Victoria in 1840. John Reeves charted the lakes in 1843 and cattle runs were established soon after. Ewing's Marsh is named after the Ewing brothers who took up one such run around what is now Lakes Entrance in 1850. It was sold to the Roadknight family in 1855 who travelled overland from Colac, to Melbourne, by boat from Melbourne to Port Albert, by bullock wagon to Sale, and then by a steamer to their final destination. Three years later the Georgina Smith became the first large vessel to find its way into the lakes from the ocean, sailing up the Tambo River to Massiface with supplies for the Crooked River goldfields. For the next 70 or 80 years Lakes Entrance played an important role in the trade of East Gippsland.

The original access point to the lakes was a natural opening about 2 km east of the present entrance, opposite and below the Roadknight homestead on Merrangbaur Hill near Lake Bunga. Although the channel was quite deep it was inconsistent, shifting back and forth along the sand barrier. By 1864 vessels were regularly using the inlet and a pilot boat, The Lady of the Lake, was employed to help schooners and steamers make their way through the inlet.

Fishing around Lakes Entrance