Coordinates: 37°45′35″S 144°58′53″E / 37.759756°S 144.981482°E / -37.759756; 144.981482 The Merri Creek is a waterway in southern parts of Victoria, Australia which flows through the northern suburbs of Melbourne. It begins in Wallan north of Melbourne and flows south for 70 km until it joins the Yarra River at Dights Falls. The area where the creek meets the river was traditionally the location for large gatherings of the Wurundjeri people and is suspected to have been the location for one of the earliest land treaties in Australia between Indigenous Australians and European settlers.
The creek was the site of heavy industrial use throughout much of the 20th century, being home to quarries, landfills and accepting waste runoff from neighbouring factories. This has degraded the riparian ecology of the creek leaving behind pollutants such as heavy metals and various greases. Recent decades have seen some regenerative planting and the foundation of several community groups dedicated to protecting and regenerating the creek's ecology.
Read more about Merri Creek: Etymology, Geography, History, Pollution, Parks and Recreation, Management and Protection, References and External Links
Famous quotes containing the word creek:
“It might be seen by what tenure men held the earth. The smallest stream is mediterranean sea, a smaller ocean creek within the land, where men may steer by their farm bounds and cottage lights. For my own part, but for the geographers, I should hardly have known how large a portion of our globe is water, my life has chiefly passed within so deep a cove. Yet I have sometimes ventured as far as to the mouth of my Snug Harbor.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)