Arnolds Creek flows for over half its course through the town of Melton. It flows from Minns Road to the north of Melton, to the Melton Reservoir in the south. It connects the woodland areas to the north & north-west of Melton to the Werribee River volcanic gorge in the south.

ARNOLDS CREEK CORRIDOR

Arnolds Creek flows for over half its course through the town of Melton. It flows from Minns Road to the north of Melton, to the Melton Reservoir in the south. It connects the woodland areas to the north & north-west of Melton to the Werribee River volcanic gorge in the south.

It begins as a drainage line within the Melton Gilgai Woodland reserve in Harkness Road. This woodland reserve is owned by Parks Victoria & is managed by Melton Shire for environmental & conservation purposes. The creek forms a valuable corridor through the fastest developing municipality in Australia (according to the latest Australian census). In not too many years Arnolds Creek will be almost entirely enclosed within Melton. Harkness Woodland is linked by roadside reserve to the Pyrete Forest several kilometres to the north, & by scattered trees to Long Forest Mallee reserve a couple of kilometres to the west.

It flows through Melton into a deep gorge until it meets the Werribee River (now enclosed with the Melton Reservoir) in Melton South. The lower Arnolds Creek gorge still retains remnant natural vegetation & forms a valuable wildlife habitat in an otherwise cleared landscape.

The Werribee River in turn is a corridor that links the large Wombat Forest in the Great Dividing Range (via the Lerderdeg River) with Port Philip Bay.

A restored Arnolds Creek is therefore of high importance as a bioidiversity corridor through a rapidly developing urban region. Such a corridor would be important to migratory birds.