Bonnie Doon – Lake Fills

Bonnie Doon Lake Eildon is currently around 95%  _(2012)

BONNIE DOON FILLS
Tuesday 31, Aug 2010

Bonnie Doon residents are rejoicing, with water flowing under the town’s iconic bridge for the first time in years.
News of water making its way up the Bonnie Doon arm of Lake Eildon has already sparked a tourism rush, with businesses inundated with calls from interested visitors.
It’s a sight that has Bonnie Doon’s Lakeside Leisure Park in a spin.
There’s water flowing into the lake and residents are lapping up the “hours of serenity”, just watching the water level climb.
“And now with the water being the way it is, and that many boats now out there fishing and water skiing, it is amazing to watch it come up how quick it has,” Leisure Park greenskeeper Steve Spencer said.
When Yvonne Dyball’s family took over the leisure park in two-thousand-and-six, the Bonnie Doon stretch of Lake Eildon was next to bone-dry.
They began transforming the park to focus away from the lake that was; never expecting the water would return so rapidly.
Now the tide has changed, and Dyballs are already preparing for a bumper summer, expecting many more tourists will be singing ‘we’re going to Bonnie Doon”.
“It’s going to make a difference, instead of doing 12 hour days, I’ll be doing 18 hour days over Christmas. But no, the atmosphere is going to be awesome,” Ms Dyball said.
Lake Eildon was at just 31 per cent at the end of July.
Now just one month later, it’s jumped to almost 44 per cent, and is still rising.
Water’s already swamped one of the leisure park’s boat ramps; Ms Dyball estimating the shore has receded 17 metres in seven weeks.
“It was about eight inches a day, so we were told, but I reckon it’s a lot more.”
With heavy rainfall forecast for the region this weekend, and during the next three months, there are predictions the lake may reach sixty per cent.
At least that’s the tip at the Bonnie Doon pub, where the bets are on, with a round of beers at stake.