General News
15 January, 2026
No Water - No Life: A History of the Mackenzie Creek (part one)
To celebrate the release of Bob McIlvena's book ‘Waters Of The Wimmera’, we're taking a look back at his ever-popular 'No Water - No Life' series, first published in 2006.
Rising from springs in an amphitheatre of stone in the peaks of the Grampians mountain range was a natural watercourse known today as the Mackenzie, originally flowing unimpeded through a depression of ferns and tall gum trees before cascading over a waterfall to a lower valley.
Its flow rate initially controlled by rain was later to be tempered by the existence of a sand embankment across its path.
The spectacular waterfall is in three sections, descending to flow through a valley of native plants protected on either side by walls of rock, then out into open plains
where it continues north-westerly to eventually terminate in the larger watercourse of the
Wimmera River.
The peace of this pristine area with its unique plants and animals was originally visited only by
tribes of Aborigines, who could never have envisaged the disturbance that was in later years
to alter its environment.
Pre Lake Wartook:
The first recorded contact with the Mackenzie by Europeans was by Major Thomas Livingston Mitchell’s exploration party on July 21, 1836.
According to records, it crossed this watercourse approximately six kilometres south of where the township of Horsham was later to develop.
Mitchell recorded that there were several pine trees near the banks where he crossed, and also stands of box trees.
He named the watercourse The Mackenzie to honour his friend Captain Mackenzie who was killed while serving with him during the Spanish War of Independence in 1812.
Following Major Mitchell’s wagon tracks through the Wimmera two years later, was Edward John Eyre, later to become a famous South Australian explorer, who, on hearing of the high price being paid for cattle at the Adelaide market, left Limestone Plains in New South Wales on December 21, 1837 with a mob of 300 head bound for the markets in Adelaide.
Eyre would no doubt have crossed the Mackenzie but there was no mention of it in his records.
The first European visitors to the Wartook Valley area were squatters with their livestock in the
mid 1800s; later horses belonging to the stagecoach company Cobb and Co grazed on what was later to become the bed of Lake Wartook.
In 1885, two horsemen rode through the Wartook Valley.
They were Mr John Dickson Derry, Wimmera Shire engineer, and Mr
Samuel Carter pioneer landowner of Brim Springs and Wartook Stations.
Mr Carter, possessing great natural ability and an original practical mind, had recognised the potential for the construction of a water storage on the headwaters of the Mackenzie and had
approached the Wimmera Shire with his idea.
Shire engineer John Dickson Derry, on his first visit to the area, was so captivated by the location and the materials available for bank construction that he had no hesitation in recommending the project to the Shire of Wimmera councillors.
Following approval for the project and a grant of £1000 or $2000 from the Victorian Government, the first stage of the bank was constructed in 1886; a second stage to raise the bank an additional one metre was completed in 1889.
Post Lake Wartook, 1886:
With Lake Wartook now located on its headwaters, and its flow harnessed and controlled by a series of man-made structures, diversion off-takes to channels, the Mackenzie not only conveyed the main water-supply source for dams and irrigation of the early settlers via natural watercourses, but provided a reserve water supply for Horsham township’s original pumping station on the Wimmera River, established in 1875.
It also conveyed back-up water for Australia’s first rural water-supply pumping station on the Wimmera River at Dooen, established in 1883.
Being the highest reservoir in the Wimmera Mallee headwork system, Lake Wartook provided water for urban, rural, and irrigation use in the Wimmera and Mallee.
Although not efficiently practical, when the original Wimmera-Mallee open-channel system was operating, prior to the piping of the northern Mallee, it was possible to regulate flows from Lake Wartook via the Mackenzie to flow all the way to the Murray River.
The fall of land from the Wimmera River to the Murray River is about 92 metres.
Biography of relevant significant events (1843-1997):
1843: Squatter Philip Davis Rose, while searching for land for grazing purposes in the Grampians, rode through what he described: ‘a wild and beautiful pass’, which was later named
Roses Gap, and established a sheep and cattle run of 64,000 acres or 26,000 hectares on which was located the headwaters of the Mackenzie.
1850: The next significant event in the creek’s history occurred when notorious bushranger Captain Melville fell from his horse while crossing it during a high flow of water.
Saving himself, he was unable to retrieve his horse and travelled on foot to the nearby Wonwondah Station. Melville enjoyed breakfast at the station provided by cook Mr Pickford after which he paid workers £5, or $10, for finding and returning his horse.
He was eventually captured at Geelong in December 1852 and died in gaol.
1864: Mr John McDonald of Wonwondah was granted £100, or $200, towards the cost of constructing a bridge across the Mackenzie on the Horsham to Hamilton Road.
1885: Following a grant from the Victorian Government of £1000, or $2000, the first contract was let by the Shire of Wimmera to Mr John Smith for the construction of an embankment across the headwaters of the Mackenzie.
This structure made history by the creation of the first irrigation reservoir in the colony - Lake Wartook.
In November, the shire also let a contract to Mr James McClounan for the construction of embankments and weirs in a swampy area on the Mackenzie at Laharum in the parish of Dollin.
On the completion of this work the area was then named Distribution Heads.
As its name indicates it regulated water to Burnt Creek into the Wimmera River to supply the Horsham urban pumping station, and also the Rural Pumping Station at Dooen.
Westwards via a channel serving the Natimuk, Arapiles areas, and also allowing flows to continue in the natural watercourse, later it received water from the Glenelg River.
An old map of Distribution Heads obtained from relatives of John Dickson Derry, features an old stone weir, and an earthen dam were already present before these works, and these were possibly built by the squatters.
1886: Mr George Keith Buchanan of Dollin was awarded a contract from the Shire of Wimmera for the grubbing, clearing, and defining of a channel in the bed of the Mackenzie Creek. The value of the contract was £925.30, or $1900.
Specification of the work to be carried out was written by engineer
John Dickson Derry and included: ‘‘From the point where the river debouches from the hills known as Shantee Crossing to where the burnt creek takes off, a distance of about 10 miles, the scrub has to be cleared to a width of 66 feet.
The scrub of all kinds that has to be cleared is to be grubbed to a depth of six inches below the surface.
‘‘Where trees are growing so closely that a buggy or cart could not pass between them, a sufficient passage is to be made on each side of the channel regardless of the size of the trees. Final payment will not be made on this work for two months after date for completion.’’
Shanty Crossing was named for a wine shanty which was constructed there during the squatting and early settlement period.
It was located downstream of Mackenzie Falls at a point where in the early 1900s Walter Zumstein was to settle, the area then became known as Zumsteins Crossing, and became a popular camping and picnic place.
1886: A channel was excavated from Distribution Heads at Laharum to supply dams in the Natimuk and Arapiles areas and also the Natimuk township reservoir; later this channel also supplied an irrigation area at Mt Arapiles.
1888: Tenders were called by the Shire of Wimmera Waterworks Trust for the excavation of a channel along the bed of the first section of Burnt Creek watercourse from its off-take at Distribution Heads.
This work was necessary to increase water supply to the Wimmera River for the increasing population in Horsham Township.
1892: A resettlement venture to solve the unemployment problem in Melbourne started at East Wonwondah.
The scheme envisaged by the Rev Horace Tucker, second vicar at the church of Christ at South Yarra, involved the transportation of hundreds of people by train, then wagons to establish a village settlement at Wonwondah.
Part of the project was to involve the supply of water from Lake Wartook via the Mackenzie and Burnt creeks to irrigate a section of land owned by Mr C. McGennisken.
Unfortunately the people from the city environment had problems coping with rural life, and failed in their attempt at self sufficiency.
By 1895 the scheme had collapsed and occupants of the settlement had departed.
1893: A petition containing the signatures of 69 landowners in the Quantong Colony was presented to the Western Wimmera Irrigation and Water Supply Trust.
The petition requested the construction by the trust, of a channel from the Mackenzie to supply the holdings at Quantong with water for irrigation.
Approved by the trust, a weir and channel off-take were constructed in the creek downstream of what is now Three Bridges Road.
A channel then conveyed water via a siphon under the Wimmera River to Quantong.
1906: Mr Walter Zumstein settled near the Mackenzie downstream of the falls where he developed a picnic and holiday area which now bears his name.
One of the features he developed was the swimming pool. Mr Zumstein excavated the pool using pick and shovel over a five-year period.
The concrete work on the pool was carried out by Harry and Bill Carine and Alex Duncan. Water for the pool was originally piped by gravity from higher upstream, then later by a pumping plant.
Above-average rainfall over the Grampians resulted in the heaviest flooding of the Mackenzie since 1881.
Many livestock drowned and private buildings located along the watercourse were damaged and some were washed away.
