INTRODUCTION
T
HIS BOOK TELLS THE STORY
of Wyperfeld National Park. It is an invitation, an introduction and a practical guide with background information to enhance every visit, and it will serve as a lasting memento. Wyperfeld is a park of contrasts — searing summer days and cold winter nights; meandering ribbons of massive gnarled trees and vast areas of low shrubs; brilliant plumage of parrots and the subtle camouflage of the tireless malleefowl; the timelessness of mallee scrub and the dynamics of a flood plain. It is also a park of many facets and layers, a place of endless wonderment. Each part of the park has a special character. Every visit is a new experience. The place is never the same — not only will you find changes during the course of a year, but return visits at the same time in different years can also bring surprises. One year there will be many kangaroos, the next year there will be few. One year there will be a profusion of native wildflowers or grasses, the next year they will be gone. A species may flower and then not return for many years. Once in your lifetime, if you are lucky, there will be lakes brimming with fresh water. It is the combination of eternity and change that is the fascination of Wyperfeld. Always there is space, peace, pure air, dramatic sunsets and brilliant night skies. Always there are the black box flats, sombre yet subtle, the mallee trees growing in sand, the cypress-pine sentinels, the spiked rings of porcupine-grass, and in the west, the vast expanse of seemingly featureless dunes. But within all this there is change, sometimes as dramatic as fire or, more rarely nowadays, flood. Imperceptible though it may be, the trees, porcupine-grass and dune scrub are moving through their life cycles. Within, above and below the vegetation there is a dynamic world of action and interaction, of dependency and of change, to be discovered, absorbed, appreciated and enjoyed by those who take the time to observe. The park is in the southern Mallee region of Victoria, Australia, about 450 km north-west of Melbourne. The name itself is one of the mysteries of Wyperfeld. It is taken from the parish in which the original section of the park is situated and there are various theories as to its origin. It may be derived either from the old German name, Wyper, a tributary of the Rhine river, and feld, field, or from the Welsh, wye, water. You might hear the name pronounced with any combination of wiper, wipper, field and feld, but the accepted version is wiper feld. With an area of 357,017 ha, Wyperfeld is the third largest of Victoria’s thirtysix national parks. Only the Alpine National Park and Murray-Sunset National Park are bigger. Wyperfeld is in the Big Desert, part of the Victorian bioregion