Amazing Park Facts

 
There's a lot to learn about Victoria's Parks. Here are some interesting facts to get you started.
 
 
 

  1. Victoria's largest park is the Alpine National Park, covering 646 000 hectares or 6460 square km. This is about twice the area of Melbourne and suburbs. Murray-Sunset National Park (633,000 hectares) and Wyperfeld National Park (357,000 hectares) in the Mallee are our second and third largest.

  2. Victoria's smallest National Park is the Organ Pipes National Park off the Calder Freeway between Keilor and Diggers Rest. Although only approximately 150 hectares in area, it protects remarkable geological features and rare plant and animal species.

  3. Victoria's busiest National Park is the Mornington Peninsula National Park, with approximately four million visits a year, many of them to the ocean beaches of the Peninsula. It's also the park with the most name changes, having been Cape Schanck Coastal Park in 1975, Point Nepean National Park in 1988 and Mornington Peninsula National Park from 1994.

  4. The quietest park is probably Big Desert Wilderness Park between Kaniva and Murrayville that sees 200-300 visitors each year. Like Victoria's other two wilderness parks, Wabba and Avon, it has no tracks or other visitor facilities, it is set aside to protect areas showing few or no traces of European settlement, and should only be visited by confident walkers experienced in bushcraft and navigation.

  5. Our oldest park is Tower Hill State Game Reserve. Near Warrnambool, it was first reserved in the 1860s and became a National Park in 1892 (though it later lost that status being declared a State Game Reserve in 1961). Ferntree Gully, now part of Dandenong Ranges National Park, was reserved in 1882. However, the oldest continuing National Parks are Wilsons Promontory and Mount Buffalo, both reserved back in 1898.

  6. Victoria's newest parks are our 13 Marine National Parks and 11 Marine Sanctuaries proclaimed in 2002. Our marine parks and sanctuaries are a world first in protecting the full range of natural environments along the Victorian coast, incorporating an amazing variety of colourful plants and animals. Proclaimed in 2008, the Cobboboonee National Park near Portland is one of Victoria's newest land based parks.

  7. Parks protecting Aboriginal heritage : The Grampians National Park has the most Aboriginal rock art sites in Victoria, but almost every park has reminders of our Indigenous heritage. Many parks have scar trees, oven mounds or stone scatters, all serving as reminders of the thousands of years this land has been occupied. In terms of place names, Langi Ghiran State Park, near Ararat, is named after "Langi Ghiran" meaning "black cockatoo". While, Croajingolong National Park's name derives from the Krauatungalung people of East Gippsland. Indigenous rangers and communities in Victoria play an important and growing role in park management.

  8. Flora and Fauna : The Alpine National Park has 975 indigenous plant species and 339 indigenous animal species making it the park with the greatest diversity of flora and fauna.

  9. Threats to our parks include wildfire, weeds, feral animals and climate change. People are not considered a major problem in most parks and visitors are welcome so long as they respect the parks and use them appropriately.