Even on cool, still mornings when mist envelops the reed-fringed waterways, move quietly through the wetlands of Budj Bim and you will spot plenty of wildlife. Over here, a wallaby peers shyly through the dew-laden poonyart grass; over there a swallow, or weewheetch, hunts for insects.

One of the wetlands’ most important inhabitants, however, is hiding away in the cool waters. For the Gunditjmara people, the kooyang, or short-finned eel, was an essential food source for thousands of years. The Gunditjmara created a sophisticated system of stone channels, weirs and ponds to channel floodwaters in which kooyang were trapped and fattened – a system that is at the heart of Victoria’s newest Indigenous attraction, which opened last month.