You can now take a virtual tour of Merri Creek starting at Port Phillip Bay and going all the way to the headwaters using Google Earth.

To take a tour using just your browser, click on one of the links below:

Reinforcing Grassland Ecological Values Tour

General Merri Creek Tour

To take the tour using Google Earth,

1. If you already have Google Earth (version 5 or higher) installed on your computer, start the tour by downloading the Merri Creek Tour file by clicking here; you should click on open in the dialog box that follows then Google Earth should open automatically.
2. If you haven't got Google Earth version 5 installed on your computer click here to download and install it before trying step 1.
3. The tour file should now appear under Temporary Places on the left hand side of the Google Earth screen.
4. Click once on "Merri Creek Tour" if it is not already highlighted, then on the play button below that.
5. Send any feedback or questions you have to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Tours you can take include:

• General Merri Creek Tour
• Galada Tamboore Tour
• Merri Creek Geological sites tour
• Native grasslands of the Merri Creek catchment

MCMC will be enhancing these tours over the next months and creating additional tours including:

• Volcanoes in the Merri Creek catchment
• Reinforcing Grassland Ecological Values tour

Your suggestions would be welcome. Send suggestions to Tony (see above).

Settings

The speed of the tour, and how long the tour stops at each point can be adjusted from Google Earth's Tools menu (choose options, then select the touring tab).

You can also get Google earth to display more information about each point by ticking the "show balloon when tour is paused" tickbox. If you find that the balloon displays for too short a time to display the photo in the balloon and read the contents of the balloon, change the tour pause time to 5 seconds or more.

Warning

Whilst the tour files on the MCMC website are quite small, the amount of data downloaded by Google Earth to display the underlying terrain is often large. Google Earth tours are not suitable for people with dial-up connections, or if you only have a small download limit.