Lake Ranfurly, Mildura, Victoria
Lake Ranfurly, Mildura, Victoria
Our Holiday in Victoria
September 2007
On our way home from our holiday in New South Wales and Victoria last year we stayed for one night in Mildura. This provincial city in north west Victoria is a prominent fruit growing area.
We arrived late in the afternoon, so I only had a short time to do some birding before settling into our cabin at one of the many caravan parks. I decided to spend about a half hour birding at Lake Ranfurly on the northern outskirts of the town. This is just off the road to Wentworth.
The birding on that afternoon was rather disappointing with very little bird life to be seen. That is quite obvious from the photo above. This shows a few Black Swans, a small flock of Silver Gulls and several Red-necked Avocets. In the distance I could see many Grey Teal; at least, I think that is what they were – they were too far across the lake to be certain.
It was quite a disappointing visit.
Your visit was disapointing for a few reasons. You were at the wrong place. This lake is a salt lake and does little to entice the birds, you needed to go down cureton ave to the treatment lake there which is fresh water and teaming with fish therefore birds too!!! And it was the wrong time of year we have been in drought and the water you saw was only storm water drainage.
We have many beautiful lakes, like lake hattah, cardross lakes and the raak plains that when it is a big wet teams with different species of lake. Perhaps you should research better before bagging out a town on the web without knowing your facts.
From an avid environmentalist…
Hi Jo,
Thanks for visiting and leaving your comments, though they puzzle me a little. I sincerely apologise if I appeared to be “bagging” Mildura. This was not my intention and I feel you are misreading my comments. On reflection, I think I could have worded my comments better.
The visit was disappointing not so much about the lack of birds but because we were on a tight schedule needing to get home. I would dearly have loved to stayed many days and explored more sites I know have many birds.
For example, I have wonderful memories of a great fortnight of birding and exploring based at Lake Culluleraine – we had to stay there because all caravan parks in Mildura were full for the music festival (we enjoyed part of the celebrations).
I also have camped many times and enjoyed the wonderful delights of Hattah-Kulkyne National Park and Murray-Kulkyne NP. Once we camped there for a fortnight and were very reluctant to return to work [sigh]. I have written several articles about Hattah here and on my birding site.
I have also written extensively on this site about Hattah and other places like the Australian Inland Botanic Gardens and Murray-Sunset NP. If you go to the top of this page, just above the heading, you will see “Previous” and “Next”. If you click on those you’ll read the other articles I wrote about the area, its flora and fauna. I don’t think you could say those articles are “bagging” the area at all – quite the opposite.
Again, thank you for your comments and I’m very sorry if they upset you. Please accept my apologies.