Mitchell River (Victoria)

Mitchell River at Bairnsdale

Template: Infobox River / Obsolete

The Mitchell River is the longest river unregulated in the Australian state of Victoria and offers a unique example of a pristine lowland forest. The main tributaries are the Wentworth River and the Wonnangatta River, all of which are surrounded by dense jungle on the steep slopes of the Australian Alps. The river flows first east and then southeast to Lake King, one of the Gippsland Lakes.

According to the Country Conservation Council Rivers & Streams Special Investigation 1990, the river landscape " an important example of a large-scale ecosystem, as it used anywhere to be found in the southeast of Australia. " In 1992, the Mitchell River was included in the list of natural monuments of Australia.

The Mitchell River National Park is located in the middle reaches of the Mitchell River, where it flows between high rock walls by several ravines. The Den of Nargun, the Cave of the Nargun, a being of local Aborigineslegenden, located about 1 km from Mitrchell River at Creek Woolshed Creek. The Mitchell River was an important place for the Kurnai, especially the tribes of Brabuwooloong and Brayakuloong who lived in the central Gippsland.

The headwaters of the River Wonnongatta and the Dargo River in 1850 were mapped. From the 1860s Bairnsdale developed as a port city on the Mitchell River, which is up to a few kilometers above the town of navigable. The Gippsland Lakes allowed on Lakes Entrance the access for steamboats, livestock, wood, wool, hides and skins transported to the market in Melbourne.

The Mitchell River is prone to flooding, with villages along the lower reaches, as Wy Yung and Lucknow are no longer accessible from Bairnsdale and it causes great damage to homes, farmland and infrastructure. The worst flooding in recent times was that of April 1990 and June 2007. They are usually caused by severe weather in Gippsland, the swell other rivers, such as the Thomson River and the Avon River.

The tributaries are home to a very large population of Australian grayling that were listed as an endangered species by the Department of Sustainability of Environment.

Gallery Images

Looking upstream of the Mitchell River near the influx de Woolshed Creek in Mitchell River National Park

View downstream of the Mitchell River near the influx de Woolshed Creek in the Mitchell River National Park

Inland delta

The delta of the Mitchell River is the classic form of the inland delta and is considered one of the best examples in the world for this delta shape. The river flows on the western shore of Lake King along to Eagle Point Bluff and then east into the lake.

A river delta has formed with alluvial silt deposits at the river mouth, the long sand banks ( " Silt Jetties " ) form, which up to 8 km far to the east extending into the lake. The silt has been deposited there over millions of years, as the flow rate decreases. These sand banks are classified by geologists as a formation of international standing, surpassed only by the sandy banks of the Mississippi to its mouth in the Gulf of Mexico.

The sand banks of the Mitchell River are exposed by the increasing salinity of the sea water increases erosion, as it is slowly dying vegetation. The establishment of a fixed channel at Lakes Entrance in 1889 was the salt content of the Gippsland Lakes to rise. The destruction of reed populations, livestock along the river banks, access for fishing and boat traffic cause further erosion.

The marshland by the river is home to a huge number of waterfowl, wading birds also from other parts of the world, and serves education. The wetlands around the Gippsland Lakes fall as an important habitat under the Ramsar Convention.