Barmah National Park, Nature reserve in Moira, Australia.
Barmah National Park is a national park in the Hume region of Victoria, about 225 km north of Melbourne, adjoining the Murray River near the town of Barmah. It covers roughly 28,500 hectares of river red gum floodplain forest broken by treeless freshwater marshes, and forms part of the 60,000-hectare Barmah-Millewa Forest, the largest river red gum forest in the world. The Barmah Choke and the Narrows, where the Cadell Fault restricts the river's flow, push water over the banks into the forest when the Murray runs high.
The Barmah Forest was used by the Yorta Yorta and Bangerang peoples for food, shelter and materials. From around 1870, hardwood timber was harvested and cattle grazed seasonally until grazing was banned in 2015. Barmah State Park was established in 1987 and became Barmah National Park in 2010, one of four river red gum national parks created that year.
The forest was used by the Yorta Yorta and Bangerang peoples for food, shelter and materials. The Barmah muster yards at the southern end of the park, built for managing cattle grazed in the river red gum forests, were heritage listed in 2009.
The park has several camping areas along the Murray River with facilities like toilets at Barmah Lakes and Ulupna Beach. Visitors should prepare for changing conditions depending on the season, especially when water levels shift considerably.
The Barmah Choke and the Narrows, where the Cadell Fault restricts the Murray River's flow, force water to overflow into the forest when the river runs high. Since the Hume Dam (1936) and Yarrawonga Weir (1939) regulated flows, winter and spring floods are shorter, and unseasonal summer flooding now disrupts the wetlands' natural drying phase.
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