Week 41 – A real Wyn Wyn situation

What- Lake Wyn Wyn

Where – Wyn Wyn road, near Natimuk.

How far – 5.24km

10 words – Escape, peace, survival, salt, endurance, stillness, butterfly haven, other world

Lake Wyn Wyn is the ultimate escape.

It takes a bit of effort finding so it is no wonder I am all alone out here

With several lakes in a row – it is part of the Douglas Depression – the roads in this area do a lot of winding across this landscape.

Head along Wyn Wyn Road until you reach the sign that says Natimuk field and game shooting range – bizarrely complete with playground – turn left and travel along a gravel road which has a stand of paperbarks on the right – near the end of these is a track which takes you to a shaded car park which is the entrance.

The track continues but I would proceed in the vehicle with cautions because once out of the trees it all changes.

It is like a vast wasteland of salt affected plants – and I would suspect snakes – so keep your eyes peeled.

At a distance the plants look like dirty pink weeds but take a closer look and they are exquisite. I think they are glass beadworts – which we saw at Pink Lakes and Oliver – and they really do look like vertical freestanding strings of beads.

This is clay country so don’t attempt to drive if there has been even a hint of rain. The straight grey tracks lead to the water’s edge and are flanked by a fencline of wrinkled wooden posts. These posts are old but appear to have been preserved by the salt – a change from the hungry white ants that attack most other unprotected timber in the Wimmera.

I head along the track for a couple of hundred metres and get to the shoreline. We visited Wyn Wyn’s neighbour Oliver earlier in the year but it was dry. Not so with Wyn Wyn which offers a shining sheet of water at the end of this road.

But not very much if the water level sign is anything to go by. It optimistically can measure up to 2.9m. You wish wish – Wyn Wyn. Twenty-nine cm is probably a stretch today.

I could paddle in the briny pond and find out but the Wimmera grey clay is resisting.

Any bit of wet shoreline sticks to my boots so I just can’t get too close.

I can’t find an origin to the lake name. Considering the spelling and that the same word is repeated twice, Wyn Wyn might be an Aboriginal name but my research did not find any concrete evidence of this. There was a reference to Wi/lam-wyn (camplhut fire) mentioned in another part of Victoria, with wyn possibly referring to fire. I can imagine some fiery sunsets reflected on these still waters.

I head back to solid ground and notice that everything is preserved with salt, the half-buried blonde lumps of driftwood, crusty cracks on the drying bank, bones and the aged posts – weathered but upright thanks to the determined clay.

Google tells of dozens of bird sightings over the years with 88 listed between Natimuk Lake and Lake Wyn Wyn. Up to 20,000 banded stilts have also congregated in the right conditions and a number of rare birds seen.

Find out more about birds here

Above the sky is endless blue, still and empty – apart from one moment when one bird hovers above – possibly a brown falcon which is common around here.

There are no big congregations of banded stilts– in fact I don’t think I saw one bird out on the water the whole day. Maybe it is too shallow or too early or too late in the year. Who knows.

I do see some bird tracks in one spot and watch where a kangaroo raced towards the lake only to do a quick u-turn in the mud!

But you don’t need the birds to enjoy his sensory paradise.

Just shut your eyes and smell the salt, listen to the sheer silence and the feel the warmth of a sun that is free of shade and intensifies as it reflects off a salty pad.

0pen eyes take in the bright colours and stark, vast lake-scape, with a backdrop of Mount Arapiles – Dyuritte and green spring crops.

The soul feels that liberating sense of being completely alone in a peaceful place.

You could imagine some bizarre outback crime movie being shot here. Or Wyn Wyn appealing to people who want that absolute escape.

I come to a possible inflow area which still holds a bit of water. I have read how Natimuk lake overflows and then the water runs to Wyn Wyn. Natimuk is very much dry now but there are quite a few hills which would no doubt produce run off with the right rains.

I keep walking until I reach a fence and here, having heard parts of the lake front on to private land, I decide to turn back.

Mind you I am quite intrigued by all the bush on the opposite side of the lake and hope to do some more exploring some other time.

Apparently this area is home to the rare golden rayed blue butterfly which lives on the creeping boobialla plant. Several years ago, there was a push to clear some of the paperbarks to ensure the boobialla could grow and provide habitat for the butterfly.

I have also read accounts of sightings in January 2008 so there is certainly more research and exploring to be done, today on my walk I don’t see any of the plant or any butterflies.

What I do see are the waves of salt on the shore. I see how salt makes the whole area sparkle when hit by the sun and how the sun just beams on the flat still lake.