LAKES ENTRANCE

port city, at the entrance of a channel cut in 1889 to the Gippsland Lakes in southeastern Victoria, Australia. It is a resort centre for the lakes region embracing the Lakes National Park and the Ninety Mile Beach and is linked to Melbourne, 165 miles (266 km) to the west, by both rail and the Prince's Highway. The beach is a curving sand-dune coast extending southward to near Yarram and paralleled by the lakes, a group of interconnected shallow lagoons of fresh water occupying an area of 150 square miles (390 square km) and including Lakes Wellington, Reeve, King, and Victoria. Natural gas and oil are extracted in nearby Bass Strait, the source of about half of Australia's domestic crude oil. The port's trawler fleet catches lake and ocean fish for the Melbourne market. Local forests yield timber. Buchan Caves (36 miles north) are notable limestone formations. Pop. (1986) 4,104.