History of Karkarook Park - In Brief

Going back to before European settlement this land was pristine coastal heathland, lightly forested with she-oak, tee-tree and native grasses. It was part of the lands cared for by the Bunurong people.

In the early 1900s, the land was farmed but never very successfully. It became just a bit of junk land that nobody wanted, attracting piles of rubbish and such. Fairchild Street was a dirt track leading to a pile of old night cans apparently damaged beyond use.

In the 1980’s The Victorian Government leased it to Boral for sand mining on condition that it be rehabilitated to parkland once the commercially viable sand had been extracted,

The development was actually dual purpose, parkland and storm water infrastructure. The serpentine ponds function as storm water filtration and the lake and it’s basin serve to mitigate a one-in-a-hundred-year flood event. The lake is fed from a bore and pump house near Henry Street, half a kilometer to the east. The land surrounding the lake includes open recreation areas, BBQ and picnic areas. After massive community effort, areas were vegetated to represent the flora as it was for many thousands of years before settlement.