Black and white photograph of the Blue Lake at Mt Gambier, South Australia. A house is located on the left side of the photograph. Verso - handwritten in black ink "The Blue Lake Mount Gambier"chatham family archive, chatham, mt gambier, blue lake, mount gambier

Undated photographs of young men swimming at Blue Lake. Blue Lake is located in Yellow Gum Park, a section of the Plenty Gorge Metropolitan Park.3 digital photographs, view of lakeblue lake, yellow gum park, plenty gorge park, plenty river

Group of Greensborough Historical Society members at the Blue Lake BBQ in February 2016. Blue Lake is in Yellow Gum Park in the Plenty Gorge. More photos of this event can be found at the GHS Resource Centre.Digital copy of colour photograph.greensborough historical society, plenty river, blue lake, yellow gum park

Blue Lake is in Yellow Gum Park in the Plenty Gorge, north of Greensborough.Digital copy of colour photographsyellow gum park, blue lake, plenty gorge park

Blue Lake is in Yellow Gum Park in the Plenty Gorge, north of Greensborough.Digital copy of colour photographsyellow gum park, blue lake, plenty gorge park

Blue Lake is in Yellow Gum Park in the Plenty Gorge, north of Greensborough.Digital copy of colour photographsyellow gum park, blue lake, plenty gorge park

Blue Lake is in Yellow Gum Park in the Plenty Gorge, north of Greensborough. These photos show views of the lake.Digital copy of colour photographsyellow gum park, blue lake, plenty gorge park

Blue Lake is in Yellow Gum Park in the Plenty Gorge, north of Greensborough. These photos show views of the lake.Digital copy of colour photographsyellow gum park, blue lake, plenty gorge park

Blue Lake is in Yellow Gum Park in the Plenty Gorge, north of Greensborough. These photos show kangaroos in the Park.Digital copy of colour photographsyellow gum park, blue lake, plenty gorge park

Blue Lake is in Yellow Gum Park in the Plenty Gorge, north of Greensborough. These photos show the variety of vegetation in the park.Digital copy of colour photographsyellow gum park, blue lake, plenty gorge park

Blue Lake is in Yellow Gum Park in the Plenty Gorge, north of Greensborough. These photos show a makeshift camp site in the park.Digital copy of colour photographsyellow gum park, blue lake, plenty gorge park

Blue Lake is in Yellow Gum Park in the Plenty Gorge, north of Greensborough. This photo was taken from Yellow Gum Park and shows Greensborough in the distance.Digital copy of colour photographsyellow gum park, blue lake, plenty gorge park

Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works. Yarra 2500 [base map]. 12-24, Municipalities of Whittlesea 239 and Diamond Valley 257. Shows street names, easement sizes, lot numbers, lodged plan numbers, names of prominent features, contour values, creek or river names. Watsonia Railway Station and environs. Prominent streets: Memorial Drive. Includes Plenty River and Blue Lake in the Plenty Gorge.MMBW Map in 1:2500 [scale] series. Cream parchment with green tape reinforcing on edges and punched holes on left edge.mmbw, melbourne and metropolitan board of works, shire of diamond valley, plenty - maps, blue lake

A quarry was transformed into the Blue Lake. Published: Nillumbik Now and Then /​ Marguerite Marshall 2008; photographs Alan King with Marguerite Marshall.; p179 The dramatic steep-sided Plenty Gorge lies along the divide of two geological areas, and separates the Nillumbik Shire and the City of Whittlesea. On the Nillumbik side are undulating hills and sedimentary rock, and in Whittlesea, lies a basalt plain formed by volcanic action up to two million years ago. This provides the Plenty Gorge Park with diverse vegetation and habitats, making it one of Greater Melbourne’s most important refuges for threatened and significant species. The park, established in 1986, consists of around 1350 hectares, and extends 11 kilometres along the Plenty River, from Greensborough to Mernda. It provides a wildlife corridor for around 500 native plant and 280 animal species. The area’s plentiful food and water attracted the Wurundjeri Aboriginal people and then European settlers. By 1837 squatters had claimed large runs of land for their sheep and cattle. The Plenty Valley was among the first in the Port Phillip District to be settled - mainly in the less heavily timbered west - and was proclaimed a settled district in 1841.But by the late 1880s, the settlers’ extensive land clearing for animal grazing, then agriculture, depleted the Wurundjeri’s traditional food sources, which helped to drive them away. Many Wurundjeri artefacts remain (now government protected), and so far 57 sites have been identified in the park, including scarred trees, burial areas and stone artefacts. Pioneer life could be very hard because of isolation, flooding, bushfires and bushrangers. Following the Black Thursday bushfires of 1851, basalt was quarried to build more fire-resistant homes. Gold discoveries in the early 1850s swelled the population, particularly around Smugglers Gully; but food production made more of an impact. In the late 1850s wheat production supplanted grazing. In the 1860s the government made small holdings available to poorer settlers. These had the greatest effect on the district, particularly in Doreen and Yarrambat, where orchards were established from the 1880s to 1914. Links with a prominent early family are the remains of Stuchbery Farm, by the river’s edge bounded by Smugglers Gully to the north and La Trobe Road, Yarrambat, to the east. The Stuchberys moved to the valley in 1890, and the family still lives in the area. In 1890, Alfred and Ada first lived in a tent where four children were born, then Alfred built the house and outbuildings around 1896. They planted an orchard, then a market garden, and developed a dairy. The family belonged to the local Methodist and tennis communities. Their grandson Walter, opened the Flying Scotsman Model Railway Museum in Yarrambat, which his widow, Vi, continues to run. Wal was also the Yarrambat CFA Captain for 22 years until 1987. Walter sold 24 hectares in 1976 for development - now Vista Court - and in 1990, the remaining 22.6 hectares for the park. Remaining are an early stone dairy and remnants of a stone barn, a pig sty and a well. Until it was destroyed by fire in 2003, a slab hut stood on the Happy Hollow Farm site, at the southern end of the park. The hut is thought to have been built in the Depression around 1893. This was a rare and late example of a slab hut with a domestic orchard close to Melbourne. Emmet Watmough and his family first occupied the hut, followed by a succession of families, until the Bell family bought it around 1948. There they led a subsistence lifestyle for 50 years, despite encroaching Melbourne suburbia. The Yellow Gum Recreation Area includes the Blue Lake, coloured turquoise at certain times of the year. Following the 1957 bushfires, this area was quarried by Reid Quarries Pty Ltd for Melbourne’s first skyscrapers, then by Boral Australia. However in the early 1970s water began seeping into the quarry forming the Blue Lake and the quarry was closed. The State Government bought the site in 1997 and opened it as a park in 1999.This collection of almost 130 photos about places and people within the Shire of Nillumbik, an urban and rural municipality in Melbourne's north, contributes to an understanding of the history of the Shire. Published in 2008 immediately prior to the Black Saturday bushfires of February 7, 2009, it documents sites that were impacted, and in some cases destroyed by the fires. It includes photographs taken especially for the publication, creating a unique time capsule representing the Shire in the early 21st century. It remains the most recent comprehenesive publication devoted to the Shire's history connecting local residents to the past. nillumbik now and then (marshall-king) collection, blue lake, plenty gorge park

Full colour postcard featuring the Portland Cable tram set (trailer 95) in front of the Bayview College in Bentnick St Portland. Has the name on front of the card and on rear some details of the operation. Produced by Blue Lake Printworks of Mount Gambier. Photo Kelvin Ruge. Divided back postcard with space for address, stamp and message.trams, tramways, cable trams, portland, museum, tram 95

Gift of Mack Jost, 1997

Water Analysis taken 18/3/1940. Blue Lake Supply Mount Gambier, SA. Gifford's Hotel Water Supply connected to this supply. Analysis gives the Grains per Gallon of the different minerals and the degrees of Hardness.sciences, instruments - general, scalebuoy, bill ashman collection - correspondence, blue lake supply mount gambier sa, gifford's mt gambier hotel

Box of presentation Cadbury chocolateUnknown circa 1950's - 1/2 lb Chocolate box with pictorial scene of "The Blue Lake" (Lago Blu, Italy) - Box 'gold' with 'platform' edgesCadbury's "Blue Lake" Assortment 1/2 lb netlocal history, cadbury, chocolate

Newspaper article extract

Community update on rehabilitation of the section of Plenty Gorge Park affected by a bushfire in December 20196 p. text and colour photographs and mapplenty gorge park, bushfires, blue lake, yellow gum park, plenty

Blaclk and white photographic postcard showing a lake and mountains and Mt Gambier, South Australia.Verso: 'The Valley Lake Mt. Gambierchatham family archive, chatham, mt gambier, blue lake, valley lake

This photograph shows the tourist drive around the top of the Blue Lake at Mount Gambier.Digital copy of black and white photograph. This photograph has no captioncharles marshall, world war 1, mount gambier

This hut came from the Tanjil goldfields, and was in use around 1900, and was the home of two miners on the Tanjil River gold field. The township of Tanjil came into being above what is now the Blue Rock Dam, in about 1867.A small, rectangular bark hut with a bark roof. The fireplace and chimney are made of corrugated iron with stone base. It has a timber framework.tanjil, gold, mining, old gippstown, west gippsland, gippsland, gippsland heritage park, goldfields, moe, historical village, tanjil valley, blue rock dam, baw baw shire, blue rock lake, old gippstown heritage park, latrobe valley, latrobe city council