Metung - Places to See

Cruises and Fishing
Cruises are conducted by Riviera Nautica, and can be reached on (03) 5156 2243.

Flathead, mulloway and bream can be caught in Bancroft Bay, off Shaving Point and the jetties.

Artists
Max Nicolson has a studio gallery where he exhibits and sells his watercolours which mostly have a Gippsland Lakes theme. Owen and Lynne Pigggott's studio displays their works of paintings and jewellery.

Metung Boardwalk
In 2007, the Metung Boardwalk was opened. The boardwalk follows the edge of Bancroft Bay from Riviera Nautic in Chinaman's Creek to the village centre. The walk is delightful, and lit at night. There are wider areas along the way with space to sset up a deck chair for fishing.

Gippsland Lakes
The Gippsland Lakes are a group of coastal lagoons which 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. In the 19th century graziers took up land in the area, destroying much natural bushland. By that time there was no reliable point of access to the ocean. Thus an artificial entrance had been created by 1889 (see entry on Lakes Entrance) to allow permanent navigable entry. This new mouth both lowered and stabilised water levels in the lakes which are fed by a number of river systems - the Latrobe and the Avon (which flow into Lake Wellington), and the Mitchell, Nicholson and Tambo (which flow into Lake King).

Taken together the lakes constitute the largest navigable inland waterway in Australia. The major bodies of water - Wellington, Victoria and King - cover 320 km of shoreline and encompass 340 square kilometres. They are the centrepiece of a distinctive and environmentally significant regional landscape of wetlands and flat coastal plains with its own unique landforms, vegetation and fauna.

The Gippsland Lakes possess features of international, national and state significance. The Mitchell River delta, for example, is an eroded digitate delta which is considered a site of international geological significance. It extends southwards from the area around Bairnsdale along the western shore of Lake King to Eagle Point Bluff. From this point it takes the form of a series of long, narrow, winding jetties of silted sediment which extend eastwards out into Lake King for 8 km (see entry on Paynesville).

Also of geomorphological interest are Cunninghame Arm (south-east of Lakes Entrance) which is a relict of a narrow channel that connected the Lakes to the ocean before the creation of the artificial entrance in 1889; the unique ecology and geomorphology of Lake Reeve with its extensive saltmarsh areas; the Tambo River delta which extends 2.5 km south-west into Lake King (although it is rapidly eroding); the Latrobe delta, protruding over 2 km into Lake Wellington, which is formed by silt trapped in reedswamp; McLennans Isthmus (a long, broad sandy promontory that separates Lake Victoria and Lake Wellington) and McLennans Strait (a deep narrow residual channel that connects these two lakes).

Owing to the permanence of the main lakes and the reasonably regular flooding of the adjacent wetlands, the ecosystem is an important habitat for over 40 000 ducks, swans, coots and other waterbirds, particularly in periods of drought. Lakes Wellington, Victoria and King are permanent deep saline wetlands supporting populations of migratory seabirds, including the little and fairy terns. Lake Reeve is an extensive intermittent saline wetland of international zoological significance which provides a highly significant habitat for up to 12 000 migratory wading birds, making it one of the five most important areas for waders in Victoria. Other noted bird populations exist at MacLeod Morass, Sale Common, Clydebank Morass, Dowd Morass, Jones Bay and Lake Bunga. The latter is a relatively small coastal wetland that is fresh to brackish, supporting waterfowl, little tern, hooded plover and the white-bellied sea-eagle. Other good birdwatching sites to the north are Blond Bay State Game Reserve, located behind Lake Victoria, and Colquhoun Forest. Vegetation around the lakes is varied, including swamp paperbark, reed and salt-marsh vegetation such as glasswort, shore rush, sawsedge and salt grass.