Lake Victoria & Rufus River

Fascinating Aboriginal and military history paired with modern day water activities

Lake Victoria

Lake Victoria is a fascinating place that embodies both Aboriginal and military history in addition to being a major water source for people in New South Wales, Victoria and other major towns and cities throughout South Australia.

In 1994 when the lake level was lowered for maintenance, a wealth of Aboriginal history was discovered. Artefacts such as camp sites, stone tools, grindstones, shell middens and hearths etc along with extensive aboriginal burial sites were uncovered. It was estimated that up to three or four thousand individual graves existed in the large burial grounds.

The significant number of remains provided evidence that dense populations of Aboriginal people had lived around the lake for many thousands of years.

During World War 2, Lake Victoria was used as a training ground for the RAAF’s 2 Operational Training Unit. 6 fatalities resulted from these activities and to this day two airmen and their aircraft remain missing in the lake bed.

For visitors to Lake Victoria there is a viewing point from which to overlook the magnificent lake.

Rufus River

On August 27th 1841, the Rufus River was witness to the death of what is said to be 35 people and injury to a further 16 in what became known as the Rufus River massacre.

The first white man to encounter the Aborigines of the area was Charles Sturt as he and his crew rowed down the Murray in 1930. It was Sturt also who named the Rufus River - apparently in honour of his ’friend McLeahy’s red head’.

Sturt proved to be the first of what became quite an influx of European traffic in the form of the ’overlanders’ - moving herds of sheep and cattle along the Murray from the eastern colonies to South Australia.

This movement disturbed the Aboriginal peoples pattern of life - and many conflicts between the two cultures arose, culminating in the massacre of 1841.

Although the intrusion of the overlanders and their violence formed the provocation for the attacks, most were initiated by the Aborigines. They displayed their resistance by strategically ambushing the Europeans while shepherding their animals across river crossings.

For modern day visitors to the Lake Victoria/ Rufus River area, there are two areas at which camping is permitted. At the Rufus River campsite (near Lake Victoria), water, shade and toilets are provided. The Murray River site is ’bush camping’ only.

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