Lake Illawarra

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Lake Illawarra ( 34°31′S, 150°50′E^[1]) is a large coastal lagoon, near the city of Wollongong about 100 km south of Sydney, New South Wales.

The towns of Dapto and Shellharbour are near the lake, which receives the runoff from the Illawarra escarpment through the Macquarie Rivulet.

Matthew Flinders and George Bass called the lake Tom Thumb's Lagoon on Flinders' chart, named after their little boat the Tom Thumb, when they were there in March 1796.^[2][3]

Lake Illawarra has a narrow tidal entrance to the sea at Windang. The lake is shallow (2-3 meters average) and vulnerable to pollution and urban run-off. It was used as a source of cooling water for the now-closed Tallawarra Power Station.

[edit] References

1. ^ Lake Illawarra page at Geoscience Australia
2. ^ Matthew Flinders. A Voyage to Terra Australis, available at Project Gutenberg.
3. ^ Miriam Estensen, The Life of George Bass, Allen and Unwin, 2005, ISBN 1-74114-130-3, page 53.