Eildon Victoria | |||||||||
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Coordinates | 37°14′0″S145°55′0″E / 37.23333°S 145.91667°E | ||||||||
Population | 944 (2021 census) [1] | ||||||||
Postcode(s) | 3713 | ||||||||
Elevation | 232 m (761 ft) | ||||||||
Location | |||||||||
LGA(s) | Shire of Murrindindi | ||||||||
State electorate(s) | Eildon | ||||||||
Federal division(s) | Indi | ||||||||
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Eildon is a town in North East Victoria, Australia. It is located near Lake Eildon, on the Goulburn Valley Highway, in the Shire of Murrindindi local government area. At the 2021 census, Eildon had a population of 944. [1]
Taungurung people are the traditional owners of the land around Eildon (which stretches north-east beyond Mansfield, Victoria and to the west nearly to Bendigo). Taungurung country is part of the Kulin nation. [2]
The name Eildon was given to the township by some of the first white settlers in the area, Mr and Mrs Archibald Thom in 1846, and was so named for its similarities to Mrs Thom's birthplace in the Eildon Hills near Abottsford in Scotland. [3]
Eildon as a township came about due to the construction of the Sugarloaf Reservoir. The township of Darlingford (which was located near the junction of Big River and the Goulburn River) was established in the 1860s, when gold was discovered nearby, however when the construction of the reservoir commenced in 1915, which would ultimately flood the land behind the dam wall, including the township of Darlingford and Eildon Station (a run of 25,000 hectares owned by the Thoms). The town of Darlingford was moved closer to where the current township is now located. The Sugarloaf Dam was completed in 1929, and the original town of Darlingford is now completely underwater. [3]
Workers were brought into the town by the State Rivers and Water Supply Commission to work on the building of the reservoir, and the shanty town called Eildon began to develop. Many lived in tents.
The original Sugarloaf Dam could only hold around 10% of the capacity of the current dam, and so construction of the Eildon Dam commenced in 1951 and was completed by 1956 to increase the size and capacity of the lake. The Sugarloaf Reservoir Dam Wall sits about 100 metres behind the current dam wall, and is visible when the water level drops very low.
Around 4,000 workers were required to complete the 1950s construction, and these workers were brought in, but required housing. The new township of Eildon relocated to the present position, and comprises a series of 300 semi-permanent houses in 14 different styles. Materials for the houses were pre-cut and fabricated in England and assembled onsite. Temporary houses and hostels were built to accommodate more workers. If you drive around Eildon today, you will see many houses are still the original pre-fabricated houses erected for workers in the 1950s. [3]
The original Eildon post office opened on 14 November 1890 and closed in 1893. It was reopened on 23 August 1915 as Eildon Weir, with the word "Weir" being removed from the name in about 1950. [4]
Lake Eildon is most notable for its extraordinary cloud cover in winter (measuring only 69.0 sunshine hours in June); this is especially cloudy for a location at only 37 degrees of latitude.
Climate data for Lake Eildon (1970–2022, rainfall to 1887); 230 m AMSL; 37.23° S, 145.91° E | |||||||||||||
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Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
Record high °C (°F) | 43.3 (109.9) | 45.4 (113.7) | 39.1 (102.4) | 34.1 (93.4) | 26.9 (80.4) | 20.5 (68.9) | 21.0 (69.8) | 24.5 (76.1) | 28.5 (83.3) | 34.2 (93.6) | 38.9 (102.0) | 40.4 (104.7) | 45.4 (113.7) |
Mean daily maximum °C (°F) | 29.2 (84.6) | 29.0 (84.2) | 25.8 (78.4) | 20.9 (69.6) | 16.1 (61.0) | 12.6 (54.7) | 12.1 (53.8) | 13.7 (56.7) | 16.6 (61.9) | 20.1 (68.2) | 23.6 (74.5) | 26.6 (79.9) | 20.5 (69.0) |
Mean daily minimum °C (°F) | 12.9 (55.2) | 12.8 (55.0) | 10.7 (51.3) | 7.9 (46.2) | 6.0 (42.8) | 4.1 (39.4) | 3.7 (38.7) | 4.2 (39.6) | 5.6 (42.1) | 7.3 (45.1) | 9.4 (48.9) | 11.1 (52.0) | 8.0 (46.4) |
Record low °C (°F) | 2.8 (37.0) | 3.2 (37.8) | 2.1 (35.8) | 0.0 (32.0) | −1.8 (28.8) | −3.6 (25.5) | −4.3 (24.3) | −4.1 (24.6) | −1.8 (28.8) | −1.1 (30.0) | 0.7 (33.3) | 2.1 (35.8) | −4.3 (24.3) |
Average precipitation mm (inches) | 48.1 (1.89) | 42.0 (1.65) | 52.0 (2.05) | 60.2 (2.37) | 78.1 (3.07) | 92.1 (3.63) | 93.0 (3.66) | 99.1 (3.90) | 81.7 (3.22) | 78.6 (3.09) | 67.2 (2.65) | 57.5 (2.26) | 850.7 (33.49) |
Average precipitation days (≥ 0.2mm) | 5.8 | 5.1 | 6.5 | 8.3 | 12.1 | 14.3 | 16.0 | 16.2 | 13.3 | 11.7 | 9.2 | 7.6 | 126.1 |
Average afternoon relative humidity (%) | 41 | 40 | 45 | 53 | 66 | 75 | 73 | 65 | 59 | 53 | 48 | 43 | 55 |
Mean monthly sunshine hours | 269.7 | 245.8 | 226.3 | 177.0 | 108.5 | 69.0 | 77.5 | 114.7 | 156.0 | 220.1 | 234.0 | 244.9 | 2,143.5 |
Source: [5] |
Eildon Fire Tower to the west-northwest is higher in altitude and located on an exposed hilltop. Snowfalls are common here and cloud cover is extremely heavy in the winter months.
Climate data for Eildon Fire Tower (1996–2022); 637 m AMSL; 37.21° S, 145.84° E | |||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
Record high °C (°F) | 41.0 (105.8) | 41.7 (107.1) | 36.1 (97.0) | 29.4 (84.9) | 22.5 (72.5) | 17.5 (63.5) | 17.2 (63.0) | 19.3 (66.7) | 26.1 (79.0) | 30.6 (87.1) | 36.2 (97.2) | 38.5 (101.3) | 41.7 (107.1) |
Mean daily maximum °C (°F) | 27.4 (81.3) | 26.6 (79.9) | 23.2 (73.8) | 18.3 (64.9) | 13.2 (55.8) | 10.2 (50.4) | 9.3 (48.7) | 10.5 (50.9) | 13.6 (56.5) | 17.0 (62.6) | 20.9 (69.6) | 24.0 (75.2) | 17.9 (64.1) |
Mean daily minimum °C (°F) | 13.7 (56.7) | 13.6 (56.5) | 11.7 (53.1) | 9.3 (48.7) | 6.6 (43.9) | 4.7 (40.5) | 3.9 (39.0) | 4.2 (39.6) | 5.7 (42.3) | 7.5 (45.5) | 9.7 (49.5) | 11.4 (52.5) | 8.5 (47.3) |
Record low °C (°F) | 4.0 (39.2) | 5.0 (41.0) | 4.0 (39.2) | 1.4 (34.5) | −0.4 (31.3) | −0.5 (31.1) | −1.3 (29.7) | −1.4 (29.5) | −0.6 (30.9) | −0.9 (30.4) | 1.3 (34.3) | 2.4 (36.3) | −1.4 (29.5) |
Average precipitation mm (inches) | 43.2 (1.70) | 38.2 (1.50) | 39.9 (1.57) | 50.9 (2.00) | 55.0 (2.17) | 66.6 (2.62) | 66.3 (2.61) | 75.9 (2.99) | 64.8 (2.55) | 54.6 (2.15) | 58.5 (2.30) | 50.6 (1.99) | 672.8 (26.49) |
Average precipitation days (≥ 0.2mm) | 7.1 | 6.3 | 8.0 | 9.1 | 15.7 | 18.1 | 20.1 | 19.4 | 16.0 | 13.2 | 10.7 | 8.6 | 152.3 |
Average afternoon relative humidity (%) | 38 | 40 | 44 | 54 | 70 | 79 | 80 | 75 | 69 | 60 | 52 | 43 | 59 |
Source: [6] |
Together with its neighbouring township Thornton, Eildon used to have an Australian Rules football team (Thornton-Eildon) competing in the Yarra Valley Mountain District Football League. [7]
Golfers play at the course of the Eildon Golf Club on Jamieson Road. [8]
There are hiking and mountain bike trails. [9]
Lake Eildon is a scenic destination for avid fisherpeople, and some of the more common species of fish found in the lake includes Redfin, Murray Cod, Carp and Golden Perch. [10] The lake benefits from the Snobs Creek Fish Hatchery Native Fish Stocking program, which in 2020 restocked the lake with more than 500,000 Murray Cod and more than 200,000 Golden Perch. [11]
The Murray River is a river in Southeastern Australia. It is Australia's longest river at 2,508 km (1,558 mi) extent. Its tributaries include five of the next six longest rivers of Australia. Together with that of the Murray, the catchments of these rivers form the Murray–Darling basin, which covers about one-seventh the area of Australia. It is widely considered Australia's most important irrigated region.
The Lake Eildon National Park is a national park in the Central Highlands region of Victoria, Australia. The 27,750-hectare (68,600-acre) national park is set in the northern foothills of the Central Highlands, approximately 111 kilometres (69 mi) northeast of Melbourne and abuts the shores of Lake Eildon.
Hume Dam, formerly the Hume Weir, is a major dam across the Murray River downstream of its junction with the Mitta River in the Riverina region of New South Wales, Australia. The dam's purpose includes flood mitigation, hydro-power, irrigation, water supply and conservation. The impounded reservoir is called Lake Hume, formerly the Hume Reservoir. It is a gated concrete gravity dam with four earth embankments and twenty-nine vertical undershot gated concrete overflow spillways.
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The Eildon Dam is a rock and earth-fill embankment dam with a controlled spillway, located on the Goulburn River between the regional towns of Mansfield and Eildon within Lake Eildon National Park, in the Alpine region of Victoria, Australia. The dam's purpose is for the supply of potable water, irrigation, and the generation of hydroelectricity. The impounded reservoir is called Lake Eildon.The first cut of ground was done by Mr Bain and Mr MacLean from Scotland.
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The Six Mile Creek Dam is a rock and earth-fill embankment dam with an un-gated spillway across the Six Mile Creek that is located in the South East region of Queensland, Australia. The main purposes of the dam are for potable water supply of the Sunshine Coast region and for recreation. The impounded reservoir is called Lake Macdonald, named in memory of former Noosa Shire Council Chairman Ian MacDonald.
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Water management in Victoria deals with the management of water resources in and by the Australian State of Victoria.
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