Baffle Creek

Course and features

The Baffle Creek rises near Arthurs Seat in the Eurimbula State Forest and just south of the Eurimbula National Park in the Great Dividing Range. The 124-kilometre (77 mi) creek flows initially southward, hemmed to the west by the Westwood Range and to the east by Mount Dromedary. The creek continues south crossed by the Bruce Highway just east of Miriam Vale and then turns south east forming braided channels near Sonoma and hemmed to the east by the Gwynne Range resulting in the formation of one named island, Grants Island. It then is crossed by the Bruce Highway again and turns east under Mount Maria then north and flows through the Mouth of Baffle Creek Conservation Park and finally discharges into the Coral Sea south of Rules Beach and northeast of Winfield. At its mouth the creek again forms an anabranch around Long Island.

The catchment area of the creek occupies an 4,084 square kilometres (1,577 sq mi) of which an area of 134 square kilometres (52 sq mi) is composed of estuarine wetlands.

Etymology

The creek was named in the 1850s by the pastoralist and politician, William Henry Walsh, during an expedition led by him to track an Aboriginal raiding party into the bush. The footprints of the raiders disappeared in the dense bush along the creek banks leading the party unable to follow them further and leading Walsh to name the creek as Baffle Creek.