The answer is a confident yes.
I paddled a canoe in Wyperfeld in the 1970s, one I think we borrowed from Rudd Campbell. He was one of my father's best mates as they were both park rangers (Dad looked after the Little Desert).
This quote from my recently published book may be of interest:
Wirringren Plain which is about five miles wide and ten long, and all the level country around, becomes in seasons of great floods the receptacle for all the waters of the River Wimmera after Lakes Hindmarsh and Albacutya are filled to overflowing. That a great flood has taken place a few years ago the whole of the plains furnish abundant evidence; but the same indications prove satisfactorily that such an overflow is of rare occurrence, probably not oftener than once in fifty years. We found, on enquiry, that the last great flood had been in the year 1852. The whole level country had then been submerged to the depth of from ten to fifteen and twenty feet, as is still apparent by the marks on the pine and box forests which it killed. Every kind of tree and shrub had perished except the redgum. The trees of the pine and box forests so killed must have been at the time from forty to sixty years old.
This was written by William Lockhart Morton, who called himself 'The Old Bushman' in 1861. I followed the quote with the statement 'This must have been an extreme event, and it occurred without human intervention. With modern river regulation, it is very unlikely to happen again'. How wrong I was, as the present flood heads down the river from Dimboola and I wonder where that enormous amount of water will end up. The next edition of the book will include a disclaimer.
If you're interested as I follow the progress of the flood, I can be contacted at
ronaldh@unimelb.edu.au.
Ron Hateley