Lake Bolac and homeward March 20-23

Lake Bookaar wetland wildlife Reserve

My brain is in a bit of a fog - too many veeery bumpy roads travelled but the terrain has been beautiful to my eyes. Over the last few days, we’ve been traveling in lakes and craters territory, the basalt plains - it’s ancient and fascinating. 

Tonight we stopped at Lake Bolac, a huge freshwater lake that was created when lava which flowed from the local volcanic cones - and there are many in the region - altered the flow and dammed the former bed of the lovely Fiery Creek. A depression formed which filled to form the lake (don’t ask me the geology of it all). We have seen many similar lakes over the last week or so. Absolutely intriguing, a geological history which I never absorbed, or knew about, but which is fascinating to contemplate.

Lake Bolac. This tree has fallen into the lake and has sprouted fresh growth!

My stomach/taste buds may not be exactly prophetic but certainly they’ve been sensing the environment; I have had a hankering for smoked eel for days and voila this weekend is the eel festival in Lake Bolac. The festival recognises the annual Aboriginal gatherings by the lake to feast on eels as they started their migration downstream and out to sea. 

Smoked eel is on the Lake Bolac pub menu for dinner tomorrow night. We didn’t manage to stay but bought a large smoked eel to bring home – we had to bend it like a cabana to fit it in the fridge. 

This is indeed eel territory and also not far from the UNESCO world heritage site of Budji Bim. Over thousands of years the Gunditjmara people of southwestern Victoria, used volcanic rock created by the Budj Bim lava flow (formerly named Mount Eccles by the European settlers) to construct a sophisticated stone aquaculture complex of fish traps, weirs, dams, and channels. Drawing upon their ancient knowledge of water cycles and migration routes, they used the landscape over a 100 sq km area to divert water flow and trap, grow and harvest eels and galaxia fish. It is one of the world’s oldest and most extensive aquaculture sites, dating back almost 7000 years. The eels farmed were then a trading asset taken along songlines (trading routes). This practice ensured ample supplies of food year-round allowing the Gunditjmara, who were primarily nomadic, to develop into a settled society living permanently off the land. Evidence of this society, including the fish traps as well as stone houses, can be seen across the Budj Bim cultural landscape today. As such, the eel traps have become an Australian UNESCO World Heritage site, the only one listed exclusively for its Aboriginal cultural values. But ....
it was time to move away from the eels and volcanic landscape and on closer to home. Our route took us through the Grampians. such a beautiful place but getting a little too overrun with tourists so we lingered only long enough to wander through one of the bush parks. then it was on to Lake Burrumbeet.

The caravan park creeps down a gentle slope to the edge of the lake; here we had a ‘room’ with a view - and not a little nostalgia. We were camped on the shores of Lake Burrumbeet where as a child we came on Sunday School picnics and as a 18-19 yo ‘our gang’ crept out of Ballarat late night to picnic among the looming ghostly cypress pines to be serenaded by a lone piper (one of our mad mob was a bagpiper).  It was thrilling and very romantic. Bittersweet trips down memory lane.

Our lovely view

Our last night on the road and we were treated to a beautiful sunset over the water.