Ruffey Lake Park (locally Ruffeys) is a park in the

City of Manningham The City of Manningham is a local government area in Victoria, Australia in the north-eastern suburbs of Melbourne and is divided into 12 suburbs, with the largest being Doncaster and Doncaster East. It comprises an area of 113 square kilometre ...

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 Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

. It is situated around Ruffey Lake in a portion of a valley through which the Ruffey Creek runs, forming the border between

Doncaster Doncaster ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in South Yorkshire, England. Named after the River Don, Yorkshire, River Don, it is the administrative centre of the City of Doncaster metropolitan borough, and is the second largest se ...

and

Templestowe Templestowe is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 16 km north-east of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Manningham local government area. Templestowe recorded a population of 16,966 at the . The ...

. It has three main entrances, Victoria St, The Boulevard and King St. Despite being the second-largest park in Manningham, second to

Westerfolds Park Westerfolds Park is a metropolitan park situated in Templestowe, an eastern suburb of Melbourne, Australia. Westerfolds is classified as a metropolitan park and conserves riparian habitat within the Melbourne urban environment. The park nestle ...

, it is the biggest urban park managed by the

. It is approximately in size. Formerly

orchard An orchard is an intentional plantation of trees or shrubs that is maintained for food production. Orchards comprise fruit tree, fruit- or nut (fruit), nut-producing trees that are generally grown for commercial production. Orchards are also so ...

s, the park has a diverse ecology; this includes a riparian strip of native bushland around the creek, areas of pine trees planted by early settlers and pockets of fruit trees remaining from past orchards. The park is named after Ruffey Creek, a watercourse that runs through the park which was dammed to irrigate the surrounding orchards, forming Ruffey Lake. During the summer, the park hosts the annual Manningham

Carols by Candlelight Carols by Candlelight is an annual Australian Christmas tradition that was popularised in Melbourne in 1938. The tradition has since spread around the world. It involves people gathering, usually outdoors in a park, to sing carols by candlel ...

History

After European settlement, the native bushland was cleared for orchards and in 1966 the then City of Doncaster and Templestowe Council purchased land for open space use. Ruffey Creek was dammed in the mid-1990s creating Ruffey Lake. Today, the creek and lake serve as storm water

drainage basin A drainage basin is an area of land in which all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, ...

s, rubbish dropped on the streets regularly flows down the creek and there are waste catchers deployed in the lake itself to catch some of this pollution. The

Wurundjeri The Wurundjeri people are an Aboriginal peoples, Aboriginal people of the Woiwurrung language, Woiwurrung language group, in the Kulin nation. They are the traditional owners of the Yarra River Valley, covering much of the present location of ...

descendants in the area still have a strong association with

Facilities

The park has three toilet blocks and electric

barbecue Barbecue or barbeque (often shortened to BBQ worldwide; barbie or barby in Australia and New Zealand) is a term used with significant regional and national variations to describe various cooking methods that employ live fire and smoke to coo ...

s are distributed throughout. There are three playgrounds in Ruffey Lake Park; near the Boulevard and Victoria St entrances. Facilities have been upgraded, predominantly the playgrounds, especially the Victoria Street adventure playground. There are sealed pathways giving access to almost every area of the park. These are of standard width and in relatively good condition but do not host dividing lines. The north-west area of the park has fewer facilities.''

Melway Melway, colloquially referred to as Melways or The Melways, is a street directory for Melbourne, The Victoria St entrance is the unofficial main entrance to the park. It hosts a three-storey adventure playground with swings, slides, ladders, a sandpit, a flying fox, a four-storey dome with stairs and ladders, and more. There are also barbecues, upgraded (winter 2011) unisex toilets, drinking fountains, maps of the park and shelters with seating. Concrete tiles on pathways details sponsors and donors to the facilities.

The Boulevard Entrance

The Boulevard entrance is mainly used by local residents. The playground is surrounded by a hilly area and is smaller than Victoria St but is still in good condition. It contains slides, swings, ladders, monkey bars, a flat area to play footy or soccer and more. It has resources such as barbecues, toilets, a map of the park, drinking fountains and an undercover seating area. The playground is sometimes visited by an ice-cream truck. In the summer, the area around this entrance hosts Manningham Carols by Candlelight in December and the Iranian Fire Festival in March.

Other features

Just to the south of the lake is a hill used by

BMX BMX, an abbreviation for bicycle motocross or bike motocross, is a cycle sport performed on BMX bikes, either in competitive BMX racing or freestyle BMX, or else in general street or off-road recreation. History BMX began during the ea ...

enthusiasts with many small tracks and a range of jumps.

Gallery

File:Creek at Finns Reserve in Templestowe 2.jpg, Ruffey Creek, near its source in the

Yarra River The Yarra River or historically, the Yarra Yarra River, (Kulin languages: ''Berrern'', ''Birr-arrung'', ''Bay-ray-rung'', ''Birarang'', ''Birrarung'', and ''Wongete'') is a perennial river in south-central Victoria, Australia. The lower st ...

at Finns Reserve in Templestowe File:Ruffey Creek.JPG, Ruffey Creek vegetation restoration File:Ruffey Creek and Wetlands.JPG, Wetlands restoration

References

External links

Profile at Manningham Website
{{Waterways of Melbourne , state=autocollapse Lakes of Melbourne Melbourne Water catchment Rivers of Greater Melbourne (region) Parks in Melbourne Urban public parks City of Manningham