Awoonga Dam

Lake Awoonga
Recognised as Australia's best impounded freshwater fishing lake.
Lake Awoonga is located 30km from Gladstone and boasts excellent recreation facilities as well as spectacular lake and mountain views. There are numerous shelter sheds and barbecues, walking paths, playgrounds and a picturesque waterfall.

Enthusiastic anglers come to Lake Awoonga to catch the famed barramundi, of which over two million have been released into the lake. The largest caught weighed in at 29.8 kilograms. Approximately 300,000 fish are released each year, including 200,000 barramundi, 100,000 mullet and some mangrove jack. Lake Awoonga is the highest stocked lake in Australia for Mangrove Jack.

Alternatively you can just sit back, relax and enjoy the beautiful scenery and wildlife. Plants in the water and river banks support the fish, eels, turtles, platypus and birds. Further from the water's edge snakes, geckos and lizards, frogs and mammals can be found.

The nearby bushland holds a diverse range of native fauna. Bandicoots, melomys, kangaroos, greater gliders and yellow bellied gliders, and brushtail possums. Wallabies such as the agile, whiptail and swamp wallaby can be spotted by keen observers.

Most noticeable at Lake Awoonga are the numerous species of birds (almost 200). This means that around 25% of Australiašs bird species can be found in the region. The Southern Squatter Pigeon is listed as vulnerable and of conservation significance and a further fifteen bird species are listed on International Migratory Conservation Agreement Lists. Lake Awoonga is arguably one of the most important near-coast bird refuges on the East Coast of Australia.

Some of the recreation facilities on the banks of Awoonga Dam