Grampians NP

Victoria (Western Region)

Grampians National Park

Grampians National Park was established in 1984. It is Victoria's largest national park and was created to protect the flora, fauna, and landscapes of the Grampians ranges-rugged mountains of red sandstone which are named after a range in Scotland. The mountains (also known as Geriwerd, their Aboriginal name) lie in four main ranges: Mount Difficult, Serra, Victoria, and Mount William.

The highest Grampian peak is Mount William at 1,167 metres (3,829 feet). The area's distinctive rock formations include a Grand Canyon, heavily eroded outcrops known as the Balconies and the Giant Stairway, and a number of cuestas-gentle slopes on the western side of the mountain meeting steep cliffs on the eastern side. Numerous streams, waterfalls, and creeks provide the habitat for many species of wildlife, including koalas and kangaroos as well as hundreds of species of indigenous flora.

The Grampians are the ancestral home of the Aboriginal Koori people, whose rock carvings in caves and shelters can be found at more than 40 sites throughout the park. Geriwerd, the Aboriginal name for the area, was added to the park's official name in 1991, but was dropped two years later.

Rising from the flat plains of western Victoria’s wheat and grazing districts, the sandstone ranges of the Grampians, with their weirdly formed rocky outcrops and stark ridges, seem doubly spectacular. In addition to their scenic splendour, in THE GRAMPIANS NATIONAL PARK you’ll find a dazzling array of flora, with a spring and early summer bonanza of wild flowers; a wealth of Aboriginal rock art; Brambuk, an impressive Aboriginal cultural centre; waterfalls and lakes; and over fifty bushwalks along 100km of well-marked tracks. There are also several hundred kilometres of road, from sealed highway to rough track, on which you can make exciting scenic drives and 4WD tours.

Halls Gap, 26km from Stawell, on the eastern fringes of the Grampians, is the only settlement actually in the national park. Its setting is gorgeous, in the long flat strip of the Fyans Valley surrounded by the soaring bush and rock of the Mount Difficult and Mount William ranges; koalas are frequently seen in the surrounding trees. Packed with accommodation and other facilities catering to park visitors, this is the obvious place to base yourself, especially if you don’t have your own transport. The newsagent in town has an EFTPOS machine and acts as an agent for the ANZ and Commonwealth banks.

Just over 2km south of Halls Gap along the Grampians Road (also known as the Dunkeld Road or the Dunkeld–Halls Gap Road) is the National Park Visitor Centre (daily 9am–4.45pm), the best place to start your visit; it has a fascinating display and videos which trace the development of the Grampians over four hundred million years. Here you can buy books, including the excellent Grampians Touring Guide (ideal for short walks) and more detailed topographic maps.

Although most walking tracks are clearly defined and well signposted, it’s a good idea to buy Vicmap, or the walking maps published by the NPWS, and carry a compass if you’re planning an overnight trek. Details of bushwalks are posted and there are masses of free leaflets; before beginning an extended walk, call into the visitors centre and register. Some walks start from the campsite at Halls Gap, while others branch off the Victory and Grampian roads, making them difficult to get to without a car.

The best times to come are in autumn, or in spring and early summer when the waterfalls are in full flow and the wild flowers are blooming (although there’ll always be something in flower no matter when you come). Between June and August it rains heavily and can get extremely cold; at that time many tracks are closed to avoid erosion. Summers are very hot, with a scarcity of water and the ever-present threat of bushfires. If you’re undertaking extended walks in summer, carry a portable radio to get the latest information on the fire risk: on total fire ban days no exposed flames – not even that from a portable gas stove – are allowed.

Brambuk Aboriginal Living Cultural Centre

Located behind the Grampians National Park visitors centre, Brambuk Aboriginal Living Cultural Centre (daily 10am–5pm; tel 03/5356 4452) grew from an idea for a rock-art facsimile centre that would draw the tourist traffic away from the actual art sites, which are very fragile. From that beginning, it developed into a full-blown cultural centre for western Victorian Aboriginal culture: a place where visitors could learn and Koories could find employment, with a management committee composed entirely of Koories. One of its achievements – unfortunately rather short-lived – was the restoration of indigenous place names in the park. These were appended to the European names in 1991, only to be discreetly dumped when the Liberal Party came to power after the Victorian state elections of 1992. The centre’s building, with its undulating red-ochre tin roof, blends in wonderfully with the backdrop of bush and rocky ridge – it was designed in consultation with the five Koorie communities responsible for the centre and incorporates many symbolic features.

A small exhibition inside features a poignant photographic history of the area’s Aborigines, and there’s a visual display of traditional Aboriginal foods and lifestyles, plus a section devoted to Central Australian land rights. There’s also a video consisting of interviews with different Koories about aspects of their lives, past and present. Downstairs, a shop sells Aboriginal music, books and souvenirs, while the small Bushtucker Café upstairs sells snacks and light meals, with, as its name implies, an emphasis on bushtucker – try possum-tail soup with damper, a rooburger or emu kebab, followed by a “wattlecino” (a cappuccino-style drink made from wattle seeds); for the less adventurous, more familiar fare is available too. Outside, the landscaped grounds are planted with examples of the major plant species found in the park.

There are short rock art tours from the centre to Bunjil’s Shelter ($12.50), as well as half- and full-day walks to other Aboriginal art sites in the national park. All tours are on demand only, must be booked at least a week in advance, and require a minimum of five people.

Rock art in the Grampians

It’s estimated that Koorie Aborigines lived in the area known to them as Gariwerd at least five thousand years ago. The area offered such rich food sources that the Koories didn’t have to spend all their time hunting and food-gathering, and they could thus devote themselves to religious and cultural activities. Evidence of this survives in rock paintings, which are executed in a linear style, usually in a single colour (either red or white), but sometimes done by handprints or stencils. You can visit some of the rock shelters where Aborigines camped and painted on the sandstone walls, although many more are off-limits.

In the northern Grampians one of the best is Gulgurn Manja (also known as Flat Rock), 5km south of the Western Highway near the Hollow Mountain campsite; from Flat Rock Road there’s a signposted fifteen-minute walk. The name means “hands of young people”, as many of the handprints here were done by children. In the southern Grampians is Billimina (Glenisla Shelter), a fifteen-minute walk above the Buandik campsite; it’s an impressive rock overhang with clearly discernible, quite animated red stick figures. Guided rock art tours are organized by the Brambuk cultural centre.

Koorie rock paintings are rare in Victoria and Australia. But not in The Grampians National Park. Five thousand years ago, the Koories who roamed the well stocked hunting ground surrounding Gariwerd as the mountain range was known to them, began recording their dreamtime legends and ceremonies on the recessed walls of caves, tucked away in rocky outcrops. It is a record of an ancient culture which was virtually destroyed with the arrival of European settlers.

Major Mitchell Trail

The first Europeans to reach the Grampians were Major Thomas Mitchell and his exploration party in 1836. Mitchell was the Surveyor General of New South Wales, and his glowing reports of the explorations subsequently attracted many squatters in the early 1840s. The Major Mitchell Trail, a signposted 1700-kilometre “long-distance cultural trail” along backroads and sometimes bush tracks, allows you to follow his route through Victoria, from Mildura along the Murray River to Swan Hill, then south to Horsham, detouring into the Grampians to ascend Mount William, and thence to the coast at Nelson and Portland. Heading back, it runs inland via Hamilton and Dunkeld on the southern edge of the Grampians, through central Victoria via Castlemaine, and then across the northeast part of the state via Benalla and Wangaratta, crossing back into New South Wales at Wodonga. A handbook of the walk might be available at the NRE Information Centre or Information Victoria in Melbourne, or enquire at the visitor information centres along the trail.

Lake Condah

A 70 kilometre drive south west of The Grampians National Park, at Lake Condah, is another significant Koorie site. Here you can see fish traps made from local basalt rock. The Koorie tribes relied on the rise and fall of the level of the lake to trap the fish. Around the traps you'll find the remains of more than 200 semicircular shaped stone houses which date back between 200 and 6000 years. Unlike most Koories, the tribe in this area had relatively permanent homes.

Nearby is the Lake Condah Aboriginal Mission, built by Europeans in 1867. Take a walk around the mission, through the ruins of the Mission House, bluestone cottages and the site of St. Mary's Church.

The Ebenezer Mission station

Sixty kilometres north of The Grampians National Park is Antwerp. Here you'll find The Ebenezer Mission station which today stands in ruins. Its pale pink stone buildings are surrounded by wheatfields and bush. A tiny cemetery contains graves of Mission Koories and Lutheran priests. An Antwerp Koorie, Bobby Kinnear, who won the rich Stawell Gift footrace in 1883, is buried here. His grave is marked by a Koorie monument erected in 1985 by the Goolum Goolum Aboriginal Co-operative to remember local Koories.

Another well known Koorie from Western Victoria was Johnny Mullagh. He was a famous cricketer from Harrow, who played with the first Koorie cricket team to visit England, in 1868. His memorial stands in the tiny village of Harrow, 70 kilometres west of the Grampians National Park.

Bushwalks, scenic drives and tours

The scenery and wildlife of the Grampians is tremendously varied, and the diversity of vegetation in the park is enhanced by the fact that this is the meeting place of the ecosystems of the forested areas in the south and east of Victoria and the dry mallee country in the north. It’s significantly warmer in the northern Grampians, an area of arid bushland filled with bent and twisted trees and scrubby undergrowth. In the cooler south, the vegetation ranges from stringybark forests and red-gum woodland in the wet Victoria Valley to luxuriant fern gullies such as Delleys Dell in the Wonderland Range. There are also subalpine communities of plants in exposed sites such as Mount William, as well as areas of stunted heaths on the Major Mitchell Plateau.

You can drive on roads through the park to major points and then get out and walk. Take care, though, as animals are often killed by drivers, especially on the Grampians Road south of Halls Gap and the Mount Abrupt Road north of Dunkeld. The most popular section for visitors is the Wonderland Range, immediately to the west of Halls Gap. From the Halls Gap campsite you can head directly to Venus Baths (2km), Mackeys Peak (1km), or The Pinnacle (10km), the most popular lookout in the Grampians with a narrow rock ledge nearby – the Nerve Test – that many try out. Delleys Dell is another Wonderland walk (5km), through canopies of tree ferns: start at the Rosea picnic area. The other major features are the Balconies, Mackenzie Falls and Zumstein, all accessible via the Mount Victory Road northwest of Halls Gap. The walk to the Balconies (1.6km return), also known as the Jaws of Death, begins from the Reid Lookout car park and goes through a stand of lichen-covered tea trees. The weird formation consists of one ledge above another, and if you’re brave enough you can stand right on the edge of the lower jaw and be enthralled by splendid views over the forested Victoria Valley. The much-photographed formation can also be seen at a distance from the Reid Lookout itself.

At Zumstein (5km east of Mount Victory Road) there’s a picnic area and car park where western grey kangaroos stand passively, waiting for food. They’re tame enough to pet, but can be a serious nuisance when you get out your food; don’t encourage them by feeding them. A three-kilometre walk runs along the Mackenzie River Gorge from here to the base of thundering Mackenzie Falls, which you can also reach more directly from the Mount Victoria Road. There’s parking above the falls, and it’s a short but strenuous walk to the base.

If you’re reasonably fit, consider tackling the walk to the peak of Mount William (1168m; 3.5km return), the highest point in the park. This starts from the Mount William Road car park, for which you turn off 16km south of Halls Gap. More challenging overnight walks include one to the Major Mitchell Plateau, starting from the same car park but involving a difficult five-hundred-metre climb to the plateau; and the Mount Difficult walk, which starts from Rose Gap and goes across a large, undulating, rocky plateau.

Tours

A few tour operators banded together to form the Grampians Central Booking Office at the Halls Gap newsagency (tel 03/5356 4654; daily 9.30am–6pm; longer in summer) which does bookings for all kinds of activities from abseiling, bike riding and bushwalking to hot air balloon flights, spotlight tours and rock climbing. Grampians Tours (tel 03/5356 6221) does an excellent 4WD-minibus day-tour ($75) to Mackenzie Falls, the Victoria Valley and to off-the-beaten-track places in the park, frequently stopping so you can take short walks to points of interest. Between September and June the ecotour operator Echidna Walkabout (tel 03/9646 8249) does a two- to three-day Grampians tour out of Melbourne, which includes accommodation on a sheep farm, bushwalking, evening spotlight walks, and on the third day the option of exploring the regional Koorie heritage, sometimes with a Koorie guide. At about $400 for two days, the tour is not cheap, but it’s thoroughly recommended. Grampians Scenic Flights, departing from the Pomonal airstrip between December and June, gives the definitive overview of the mountain range, with sky-high prices to match; book through the Grampians store (tel 03/5356 6294).