Cherry Lake is part of historical

coastal A coast (coastline, shoreline, seashore) is the land next to the sea or the line that forms the boundary between the land and the ocean or a lake. Coasts are influenced by the topography of the surrounding landscape and by aquatic erosion, su ...

wetland A wetland is a distinct semi-aquatic ecosystem whose groundcovers are flooded or saturated in water, either permanently, for years or decades, or only seasonally. Flooding results in oxygen-poor ( anoxic) processes taking place, especially ...

s in Altona, a suburb of

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Queen Victoria (1819–1901), Queen of the United Kingdom and Empress of India * Victoria (state), a state of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, a provincial capital * Victoria, Seychelles, the capi ...

, Australia. The wetlands were converted to a

lake A lake is often a naturally occurring, relatively large and fixed body of water on or near the Earth's surface. It is localized in a basin or interconnected basins surrounded by dry land. Lakes lie completely on land and are separate from ...

with construction of

retaining wall Retaining walls are relatively rigid walls used for supporting soil laterally so that it can be retained at different levels on the two sides. Retaining walls are structures designed to restrain soil to a slope that it would not naturally keep to ...

levee A levee ( or ), dike (American English), dyke (British English; see American and British English spelling differences#Miscellaneous spelling differences, spelling differences), embankment, floodbank, or stop bank is an elevated ridge, natural ...

s and flow channels. The lake and surrounding reserve is an important wildlife habitat and popular recreational destination.

Flora and fauna

Cherry Lake and nearby Truganina Swamp are habitat for the native

sedge The Cyperaceae () are a family of graminoid (grass-like), monocotyledonous flowering plants known as wikt:sedge, sedges. The family (biology), family is large; botanists have species description, described some 5,500 known species in about 90 ...

, chaffy sawsedge (''

Gahnia filum ''Gahnia filum'', the chaffy saw-sedge, is a tussock-forming perennial in the family Cyperaceae, endemic to Australia. It grows to between 60 and 110 cm in height. The species occurs in coastal salt marsh in the states of New South Wales ...

''). The

fields provide food and habitat for the endangered Altona

skipper butterfly Skippers are a group of butterflies placed in the family Hesperiidae within the order Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies). They were previously placed in a separate superfamily, Hesperioidea, but have since been placed in the superfamily Papilion ...

(''Hesperilla flavescens flavescens)''. The lake and associated

salt marsh A salt marsh, saltmarsh or salting, also known as a coastal salt marsh or a tidal marsh, is a coastal ecosystem in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and open saltwater or brackish water that is regularly flooded by the tides. I ...

vegetation provides habitat for

pelican Pelicans (genus ''Pelecanus'') are a genus of large water birds that make up the family Pelecanidae. They are characterized by a long beak and a large throat pouch used for catching prey and draining water from the scooped-up contents before ...

black swan The black swan (''Cygnus atratus'') is a large Anatidae, waterbird, a species of swan which breeds mainly in the southeast and southwest regions of Australia. Within Australia, the black swan is nomadic, with erratic migration patterns dependent ...

s and

purple swamphen The purple swamphen has been split into the following species: * Western swamphen, ''Porphyrio porphyrio'', southwest Europe and northwest Africa * African swamphen, ''Porphyrio madagascariensis'', sub-Saharan continental Africa and Madagascar * ...

s. Weed control is carried out on a regular basis, targeting spiny rush, serrated tussock and

boxthorn ''Lycium'' is a genus of flowering plants in the nightshade family, Solanaceae. The genus has a disjunct distribution around the globe, with species occurring on most continents in temperate and subtropical regions. South America has the most spec ...

Mosquito Mosquitoes, the Culicidae, are a Family (biology), family of small Diptera, flies consisting of 3,600 species. The word ''mosquito'' (formed by ''Musca (fly), mosca'' and diminutive ''-ito'') is Spanish and Portuguese for ''little fly''. Mos ...

larvae numbers are monitored and a biological agent is occasionally utilised for control.

Rabbit Rabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also includes the hares), which is in the order Lagomorpha (which also includes pikas). They are familiar throughout the world as a small herbivore, a prey animal, a domesticated ...

control is also undertaken. The first fish were introduced in Cherry Lake in 1972.

Construction

The lake was created in the 1960s as a flood

retention basin A retention basin, sometimes called a retention pond, wet detention basin, or storm water management pond (SWMP), is an artificial pond with vegetation around the perimeter and a permanent pool of water in its design. It is used to manage ...

for residential expansion in Altona and

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

. Prior to this, it was a motor racing circuit, constructed in 1954 at a cost of 35,000 pounds. Levees were constructed on the south and east side of the lake with a spillway and channel which discharges excess water to

Port Phillip Bay Port Phillip ( Kulin: ''Narm-Narm'') or Port Phillip Bay is a horsehead-shaped enclosed bay on the central coast of southern Victoria, Australia. The bay opens into the Bass Strait via a short, narrow channel known as The Rip, and is comple ...

. These help to maintain a relatively constant water level of around one metre in depth. An additional higher levee bank was constructed to prevent floodwaters from

Kororoit Creek The Kororoit Creek is a watercourse of the Port Phillip catchment, rising in the outer north western suburbs of Melbourne, in the Australian state of Victoria. Location and features The Kororoit Creek rises below Mount Kororoit, northeast of ...

sweeping across the lake toward residential areas.

Recreational and community use

The lake attracts boats,

windsurfer Windsurfing is a wind-propelled water sport that is a combination of sailing and surfing. It is also referred to as "sailboarding" and "boardsailing", and emerged in the late 1960s from the Californian aerospace and surf culture. Windsurfing gain ...

s and anglers.

Water bird A water bird, alternatively waterbird or aquatic bird, is a bird that lives on or around water. In some definitions, the term ''water bird'' is especially applied to birds in freshwater ecosystems, although others make no distinction from seabi ...

s can be viewed from a

bird hide A bird hide (blind or bird blind in North America) is a shelter, often camouflaged, that is used to observe wildlife, especially birds, at close quarters. Although hides or hunting blinds were once built chiefly as hunting aids, they are now comm ...

. A 3.7-kilometre-long shared walking and bicycle path encircles the lake, connected to the Hobsons Bay Coastal Trail. Other facilities in the reserve include a playground, picnic shelter, barbecue, seating, toilets and car park which is accessed from Millers Road. The Altona

Lions Club Lions Clubs International, is an international service organization, currently headquartered in Oak Brook, Illinois. , it had over 46,000 local clubs and more than 1.4 million members (including the youth wing Leo clubs, Leo) in more than 200 ge ...

hold an outdoor market on the first Sunday of every month (and the third Sunday in December) on the Millers Road side of the park.

Motor racing

Originally just a swamp, the Victorian Sporting Car Club built a 2.3-mile circuit in 1953–54. This circuit was known as the Altona Circuit. Unfortunately for the club, the swamp soon became a lake, with the circuit being completely covered by water during winter in 1955. It was used just once more in 1956 before closing for good. After the closure of the

Albert Park Circuit The Albert Park Circuit is a motorsport street circuit around Albert Park and Lake, Albert Park Lake in the suburb of Albert Park, Victoria, Albert Park in Melbourne. It is used annually as a circuit for the Formula One Australian Grand Prix, t ...

in 1958, it was proposed that a new circuit and facilities be built on the Cherry Lake site for the 1964 Australian Grand Prix, to be called Altona Park, but ultimately the facility was built in

Sandown Sandown is a seaside resort and civil parishes in England, civil parish on the south-east coast of the Isle of Wight, England. The neighbouring resort of Shanklin and the settlement of Lake, Isle of Wight, Lake are sited just to the south of t ...

instead.

Environmental issues

Detergent spill

On the 7th of March 2022, a spill of up to 13,000 litres of

detergent A detergent is a surfactant or a mixture of surfactants with Cleanliness, cleansing properties when in Concentration, dilute Solution (chemistry), solutions. There are a large variety of detergents. A common family is the alkylbenzene sulfonate ...

, Teric N9, was reported to EPA Victoria after a factory fire from

Laverton North Laverton North is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, west of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Wyndham local government area. Laverton North recorded a population of 119 at the 2021 census. Located ne ...

industrial area.

Melbourne Water Melbourne Water is an Australian statutory authority owned by the Victorian State Government, which controls and manages much of the water bodies and supplies in metropolitan Melbourne, the capital of Victoria. Its jurisdiction includes all t ...

found 20 tonnes of dead fish in the lake and cleaned up about 38 million litres of contaminated water which were sent to sewer. MTAW Group Pty Ltd, a transport and warehousing company, got charged by EPA in October 2022 for not minimising the risk of harm of the spill and failing to comply with its general environmental duty. The estimated total fines was up to $1.8 million. Early 2023, the water quality was considered acceptable and it was confirmed that the fish population was still present and would return to pre-spill levels within a few seasons.

Concrete gravel and dust in drains

At the end of 2023, Aerolink Property Construction Pty Ltd, a company situated in

, got fined $1,923 by EPA Victoria for letting dust and concrete gravel escape through kerb side gutters and stormwater drains causing risk to nearby waterways including Cherry Creek.

Gallery

File:Cherry lake, foot path - panoramio.jpg, Footpath next to Cherry Lake File:Cherry lake, Altona, Vic - panoramio.jpg, Footpath and view over Cherry Lake File:EPA staff cleaning Cherry Lake.png, EPA staff cleaning Cherry Lake after the detergent spill in 2022

References

External links

Beautiful Altona

Picturesque AltonaHobsons Bay Community Online ForumAttractions of Altona MapFacebook Page on Events & Activities in Altona
{{Lakes of Victoria , state=collapsed Lakes of Melbourne Melbourne Water catchment Rivers of Greater Melbourne (region) Parks in Melbourne City of Hobsons Bay