Opening of the Sand Bar at Lake Tyers Beach

Currently the sand bar is closed and Lake Tyers is not tidal.  It has recently had some more flows in from the ocean during a stormy interlude, but nothing to raise the level much.  In fact the lake is coming out of one of its very low cycles at the moment.  We have had recent rains but not a really big lift in height, however very bit counts and is appreciated. For some dramatic photos of what levels the lake can reach see HowDeep.

Panorama Christmas/New Year at Lake Tyers 2011
(A full 360 taken and prepared by Nicholas Ward, click on it if you like to see the big 1.4Mb image )


Panorama - August 27 2011 the lake has opened again, but closed by Xmas.


Panorama - June 2011 and the Lake is still closed but much deeper.

Panorama - August 2009 and the Lake is closed.

However it has opened in recent times and, below is chronicled the few openings that I have witnessed (in reverse order chronologically).

December2008/January2009: This time the sand bar was breached artificially with shovels. The gap was made to the east of the last opening and was not that deep or long lasting as the lake was not that high when the breach was made.

Panorama  of the westerly man made entrance.

 
How did a couple of men dig though the sandbar?  Well the photograph below shows that during a storm in December 2008, the bar was low enough for storms to wash over into the lake. If the bar had been left alone it would have probably built up and the high water retained for quite a while, until it burst through naturally again.  Once a narrow channel had been dug that night, the small trickle became a deluge, and the bar was broken.  Apparently the people responsible were fined for this unauthorised interference.



Panorama of a naturally made breach
December 2007: Natural entrance shown below created by storms earlier at the middle of that year. Note the entrance is silting up with the easterly drift of sand along 90 Mile Beach. The entrance is nearly closed again.
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August 2007: The eastern side of the entrance is building up with sand wash from the 90 Mile Beach and generally prevailing westerly winds. 


Looking from the air after a few months (September,2007) it looked like this...


The entrance created shown below was at the height of the storms mid 2007.  The regional floods stopped traffic on the Princes Highway at many river locations, as the Tambo, Nicholson, Mitchell, Avon all flooded.  The most significant for traffic was the Mitchell River at Bairnsdale, being the last main road to open.


The huge force of this natural opening in June 2007 is evident as shown here with the breadth and  energy of the breach.  The lake was very tidal and huge quantities of sea water washed in and out on the tides for many months afterwards.  The fishing in the lake was quite depressed during this time.

However it is not recommended to be this close to the action!!! No matter how interesting!!!



Just to whet your taste buds, here is an older aerial photograph of the early Lake Tyers Beach with some indication of the sand bar.  Bec and Daff have this as a kind of postcard, do you have anything you would like to share? Circa 1970's???  Any ideasof the date???  If you check it closely you can see the massive Norfolk Island Pine in the decking of the Tavern when it was much smaller.


Check out these aerial images of the Lake Entrance opening courtesy http://www.lesmp.vic.gov.au - very interesting indeed! Especially the 1944 photo.