Hattah Lakes tour from Mildura: What can I see in the National Park?

The Murray Offroad Adventures tour from Mildura explains how Murray River irrigation schemes have endangered the Hattah Lakes. On guided walks of the Hattah-Kulkyne National Park, Aboriginal boundary trees are also pointed out.

The Hattah Lakes are part of the Hattah-Kulkyne National Park, 75km south of Mildura and 450km north-west of Melbourne.

You can visit the lakes as part of a Murray Offroad Adventures tour from the regional city of Mildura, Victoria. The day tour brings company owner Peter Kelly’s knowledge as a former land, forest and waterways manager to the fore.

In the Hattah-Kulkyne National Park, there is a feeling of proper riverland bush. But human intervention has significantly altered things at the Hattah Lakes.

How the Hattah Lakes fill

There are 20 lakes, which fill intermittently, fed by Chalka Creek, an anabranch of the Murray River. Chalka Creek acts as something of an overflow pipe for Australia’s longest river.

The RAMSAR convention, which protects globally significant wetlands, lists twelve of the Hattah Lakes. For migratory birds, this is a hugely important stop. But for wetlands to remain as wetlands, they require water.

This is where the battle for control of the Murray River’s precious flow comes in. The agriculturalists, given the chance, would siphon off the lot to grow crops. But some needs keeping for environmental use. Landscapes and ecosystems would be killed off if crop-growers were allowed to have a free rein.

Peter explains that about half of the Murray’s flow is used for irrigation and town water supplies. This leads to a rationing system whereby people and companies bid for water allocations. In a dry year, these allocations get more expensive, and some will sell their allocation rather than attempting to grow anything.

“People just hear the words ‘environmental water’ and get on their high horse about it,” says Peter. But the Hattah-Kulkyne National Park offers the perfect example of why environmental water is necessary. Between 1996 and 2006, Chalka Creek was dry. The Hattah Lakes were dying, and the wetlands were more or less dried up.

Saving the Hattah Lakes

Action was needed, so a system of regulators was put in. The additional lowering of the creek bed allows flows from the Murray arrive at traditional times of flood. This keeps the environment close to what it should be. But now visitors see the natural equivalent of a medieval cathedral rebuilt after a fire. It’s a restoration of what should be, rather than the result of nature doing its thing.

Outside Lake Hattah, which currently looks like a grassy pasture, Peter says: “This is the first lake to dry up and the first one to get full too.”

Aboriginal boundary trees

By the side of the lake is a strange-looking tree, with a series of gnarls and circles. This is, apparently, evidence of Aboriginal presence. Indigenous groups would bend the branches to give directions and create boundary trees – trees which marked a boundary between groups, often indicating a meeting place at said boundary. “There are too many circles on this tree for it to be accidental,” says Peter.

Also on show are ‘scar trees’. Indigenous people removed the bark to create temporary shelters or canoes.

Several groups lived along the river, and while practices and sometimes languages would be significantly different, the linking theme was the Murray. “Each Aboriginal group tells its own version of the Dreaming story,” says Peter. “But all involve the cod being chased by a mighty hunter, carving through the landscape on the way.”

Mildura to Hattah: Booking a Hattah Lakes tour

This sort of knowledge is the main reason to take a Hattah Lakes tour from Mildura. It’s perfectly possible to visit walking trails of the Hattah-Kulkyne National Park independently. But on the Murray Offroad Adventures tour, there is valuable context about Murray River irrigation and great information about Aboriginal culture.

The Hattah-Kulkyne National Park tour costs $150 per person and lasts around six hours. Murray Offroad Adventures also offers tours to the neighbouring Murray Sunset National Park. Mildura fits in nicely as part of a Murray River road trip towards Adelaide.

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