The natural entrance to the lakes was unreliable and often dangerous. After much agitation, work began in 1872 to cut an artificial entrance, west of the natural entrance. Work on the “New Entrance” proceeded slowly and in 1876 was abandoned. Sir John Coode, renowned harbour engineer, advised on improvements but work did not resume until the early 1880s. In 1889, the new entrance was prematurely opened when a severe storm broke through the remaining sand hills. The natural entrance quickly silted up.

The Mitchell River Silt Jetties are an unusually long, thin landform in the Gippsland Lakes region in Victoria, Australia. A type of digitate delta, they have been formed over thousands of years by sediment deposition from the Mitchell River during periods of low water flow and subsequent wash-through during periods of high water flow. The long narrow banks of silt thus formed extend more than eight kilometres east into Lake King. The south bank is navigable by car from Eagle Point through to the very easternmost tip at Point Dawson.

The Silt Jetties have been eroding since the early 1900s, soon after the permanent entrance to the Gippsland Lakes introduced sea water that killed protective shoreline vegetation. In 1919 a break cut through the northern Silt Jetty and by 1970 their land area was reduced by 45 percent. Works are being undertaken to preserve them. Farming on the jetties has ended and they are used for recreation. The jetties are listed on the Register of the National Estate.

The Ninety Mile Beach is a sandy stretch of beach on the south-eastern coastline of the East Gippsland region of Victoria. The beach faces Bass Strait and backs the Gippsland Lakes. The beach is just over 151 kilometres (94 miles) in length, running north-eastward from a spit near Port Albert to the man-made channel at Lakes Entrance. Behind the beach are long sandy dunes that separate the Gippsland Lakes from Bass Strait. The beach is an uninterrupted stretch of untamed coastline; it does not have any rocky headlands or platforms, and offshore there are only a few ribbons of reef which are periodically covered by sand.