Refurbished lake enriches city's personality

Shepparton’s refurbished Victoria Park Lake enriches the city’s personality.

A sign at Shepparton's Victoria
Park Lake outlining all that
is proposed.

The city, established on a depressingly flat topography and which has turned its back on its richest asset, the river, needed something to lift it above the banal and so what was pretty much as swamp became a lake.

The lake, however, is more than that for it is a truly visible and tangible link with water and as humans have an intrinsic need for water – without it we die – what is pictorially pleasant, is also comforting and quietly reassuring.

Early manifestations of the lake arrived after significant community effort, including many tireless working bees.

What we see now however, and enjoy was not so easily, or cheaply, achieved.

Works to lift the lake from its somewhat dated state to its present level of sophistication, including an active water quality maintenance system; the creation of a space that allows for passive water sports; improved safety; the establishment of intriguing walker paths; extensive plantings that attract wildlife, help with water quality; and the sweeping beautification of the area cost more than $5 million.

Those unable to appreciate the aesthetic value and benefits of such an undertaking looked on with wonderment as “their” money was being spent on something with no apparent commercial relevance to the city.

Although noisy in their criticism, the critics were obviously wrong as the lake is more than what it is in that it contributes substantially to the broader health of our community.

Life today is rather hurried and 30 minutes strolling around the lake or sitting on the lawns or one of the many nearby seats, becomes a peaceful oasis in a life that appears more interested in what happens next rather than focussing on the moment.

It took courage and vision by those who sat on the City of Greater Shepparton Council to advocate such an idea and publically embrace the millennia old values of the Athenians and strive to create a place which celebrates grace and beauty.

The utilitarians among us who see only advantage in that which is both practical and functional and whose success they measure only in direct financial profit have little sympathy for such things as Victoria Park Lake

The cultural achievements of Athens, democracy’s nursery, and Athenians themselves, held in high esteem the discipline, skill, and taste that are required to produce enduring art.

The imagination, discipline and behaviour so prized by the Athenians echoes in what we now see at Shepparton’s Victoria Park Lake, a spectacular piece of different and practical public art.

All of us own that “piece of art” and so in concert with the thinking that drove its creation we need to enjoy and respect it, taking just pictures, and leaving only footprints.