EXPLORING AUSTRALIA FELIX
The Glenelg River begins its journey in the Gariwerd (Grampians), a majestic mountain range rising out of flat farmlands in southwestern Victoria, and winds its way 350kms amid rich pasturelands through Balmoral and Casterton to the coastal village of Nelson.
The Glenelg was like a highway to Aboriginal peoples, who have lived in this region for thousands of years – Gariwerd alone is home to around 140 Aboriginal rock-art sites up to 22,000 years old.
The Kanalgundidj, part of the Jardwadjali language group, held large corroborees at a site now called Island Park, near the banks of the Glenelg River in Casterton. Reports from early European settlers in the 1840s describe more than 800 people gathered here.
Island Park is now home to Casterton’s football oval and other sporting facilities, but nearby Ess Lagoon, shaded by huge, gnarled redgums, is little different today than it was when Kanalgundidj camped around its shores.
The lagoon was, and still is, an important nesting and feeding site for native birds, from heron, cormorant, swamp hen, wood duck, swan, parrot, kookaburra, kite and wattlebirds to little blue wrens darting among the trees.
These days, travellers lap up the serenity of the idyllic lagoon, where those with self-contained caravans
