Dandenong Creek
The Dandenong Creek is an urban creek of the Port Phillip catchment, located in the eastern and south-eastern Greater Melbourne region of the Australian east coast state of Victoria. The creek descends approximately over its course of before joining the Eumemmerring Creek to form the Patterson River and eventually draining into the Beaumaris Bay.
Together with its distributary Mordialloc Creek and the culvert-linked Kananook Creek and Elster Creek, the so-called "Dandenong Catchment" has an overall catchment of approximately.
Etymology
The traditional custodians of the land surrounding what is now known as the Dandenong Creek were the indigenous Bunurong people of the Kulin nation who referred to the creek as Narra Narrawong; while others gave the creek the name Dandenong, sometimes spelled as Dand-y-non or Tanjenong by early settlers, believed to mean "high" or "lofty".Course
The first European to see the creek near its source was in 1839 and is believed to be Daniel Bunce, a botanist.Dandenong Creek has its headwaters in the Dandenong Ranges near Olinda, sourced by a series of springs and small runoff streams within the Dandenong Ranges National Park. The creek can be roughly separated into three sections:
- The Upper Dandenong starts at the Olinda town center and first flows westwards between Mount Dandenong and The Basin, picking up its first significant tributary, the Dobson Creek, near a retarding basin just west of the junction among The Basin, Kilsyth, Kilsyth South and Boronia. It continues further west as the boundary between several adjacent suburbs, picking up Little Bungalook and Tarralla-Bungalook Creek before turning southwards at the junction between Ringwood, Vermont and Wantirna, roughly where EastLink crosses.
- The Middle Dandenong starts at the mouth of the small Heatherdale Creek just west of EastLink, and then flows meanderingly to the south, joined by the Blind Creek. It then crosses over to the east side of the EastLink, joined by the Corhanwarrabul Creek, and then courses southeast towards the western edge of the Churchill National Park, crossing the namesaked Dandenong Valley Highway in the process. After draining a series of greenspace reserves known as the Dandenong Valley Parklands, the creek reaches a former police paddock in Endeavour Hills and turns more southwardly again as the boundary between Dandenong North and Endeavour Hills. The riparian zones, retention ponds and retarding grasslands in associated runoff catchment surrounding the tri-suburban junction between Dandenong North, Dandenong and Doveton are known as the Dandenong Wetlands, which include a section of Heatherton Road just west of Monash Freeway that functions as a floodway. The creek then continues further south as the northern half of the boundary between Dandenong and Doveton.
- The Lower Dandenong starts just upstream of the Clow Street bridge in Dandenong East, where the creek becomes concrete-lined throughout almost its entire course within Dandenong. It first turns southwest at Dandenong Park, looping shortly northwest before crossing Princes Highway and the Pakenham/Cranbourne railway line, then continues further westwards south of the Dandenong town center until it picks up the Mile Creek about upstream of the Dandenong Bypass bridge. It then turns straight south again and courses alongside the EastLink's east side as the boundary between Dandenong South and Keysborough, crossing over to the west side of the EastLink again about before giving off Mordialloc Creek near the tri-suburban junction with Bangholme at the Perry Road bridge. It then flows southwest into Bangholme for another before reaching its confluence with the Eumemmerring Creek to form the partly man-made Patterson River, which continues southwest through Bangholme, Patterson Lakes, Bonbeach and Carrum and drains into the Beaumaris Bay, a small eastern bight of Port Phillip Bay north of the Mornington Peninsula.
Tributaries
- Dobson Creek — headwaters in Sassafras, confluence in northern The Basin
- Little Bungalook Creek
- Bungalook Creek — headwaters in Montrose, joined by Tarralla Creek in western Bayswater North, confluence in Heathmont
- Heatherdale Creek — headwaters in southwestern Ringwood, confluence in eastern Vermont
- Blind Creek — headwaters in Dandenong Ranges National Park, goes briefly underground in Ferntree Gully and Wantirna South, confluence in northwestern Scoresby
- Corhanwarrabul Creek — headwaters in southern Ferny Creek, joined by Monbulk Creek between southern Knoxfield and northern Rowville, confluence in southwestern Rowville
- Mile Creek — headwaters from urban runoffs in northern Springvale, eastern Clayton, eastern Notting Hill and western Mulgrave, joined by Yarraman Creek in eastern Noble Park, confluence between southwestern Dandenong and eastern Keysborough
- Eumemmerring Creek — headwaters in western Belgrave South, joined by numerous drains from the Lysterfield Lake, Hallam Main Drain and Eastern Contour Drain, confluence at Bangholme to form the Patterson River
Distributary
- Mordialloc Creek — branching off the right bank of Dandenong Creek at the tri-suburban junction of Keysborough, Bangholme and Dandenong South, flowing west/northwest as the boundary between Keysborough, Bangholme, Waterways, Braeside and Aspendale Gardens, picking up the drainage runoff from the Smythes Drain, Waterways Lake and Lagoons, Dunlops Drain, Mordialloc Settlement Drain, Heatherton Drain and the Edithvale Wetlands Drain before emptying into Beaumaris Bay between Mordialloc and Aspendale.
Ecology
The Dandenong Creek catchment is the westernmost native range of eastern dwarf galaxias, which is endangered due to habitat loss, riparian degradation, the extirpation of commensal Geocharax crayfish, and predation/competition from invasive species such as the redfin perch, brown trout and eastern mosquitofish.
The health of the creek in these urban areas ranges from moderate to very poor and has been the focus of a number of clean-up campaigns in recent years. An industrial wastewater stream known as Old Joes Creek flows into Dandenong Creek, with its confluence in. This drain runs underground for much of its course, running in a westerly direction and servicing several industrial estates in the catchment of Dandenong Creek. The tributary is commonly contaminated with plastic litterings and heavy metals, and authorities have made several attempts to prevent pollution which spreads downstream into Dandenong Creek.