Halls Gap

Victoria (Western Region)

Halls Gap
In 1841, when the early squatter CB Hall followed the path made by the Koorie people into the gap, he had no idea where it would lead. Today, nestled between the Mount Difficult and Mount William Ranges, Halls Gap is the bustling village named after him. There are shops and restaurants, places to camp and motels and guest houses in which to stay. High in the trees around this friendly, relaxed township, koalas can still be found sleeping in the forks of the manna gums. And their grunts are a telltale sign of their presence in trees along some walking tracks.

This can be followed by a visit to the Brambuk Living Cultural Centre, just two kilometres from Halls Gap. The Centre brings to life the rich history and culture of the Koorie communities of the Wimmera and south west Victoria. Eating, drinking and entertainment
There’s no shortage of places to eat in Halls Gap. The Stony Creek Bakery (daily 8am–5pm) makes fresh bread daily and sells eggs; the more expensive Flying Emu Café serves cakes, snacks and light meals; and the Cafe Rosea does burgers, steak sandwiches, roast meals, pizza and pasta, and is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The Halls Gap Tavern, Lot 5, Dunkeld Road (daily 5pm–late), is a pleasant, moderately priced restaurant and bar. The Kookaburra Restaurant on Grampians Road (daily from 6.30pm, bookings advisable on tel 03/5356 4222), comes highly recommended for its inexpensive café-style dishes – mainly pasta – and for its restaurant food, which features venison and home-made ice cream. Darcy’s at the Colonial Motor Inn on Grampians Road (daily from 6.30pm, bookings advisable on tel 03/5356 3440 is another motel restaurant dishing up good food including emu. Both restaurants have local wines on their wine list. The Halls Gap Hotel on the Stawell Road has a bistro with a great view of the Grampians and a drive-in bottle shop. A small cinema operates during school holidays, and there’s even a film festival at the beginning of November showing art-house films and a jazz festival over a weekend in mid-February. Accommodation
During school holidays, particularly in January and at Easter, the Grampians are packed, although Halls Gap has lots of accommodation of every kind, you’ll need to have booked far in advance, many places will insist on long stays. In town, Mountain Grand, Grampians Road, is a friendly guesthouse which has a licensed restaurant and a jazz café and bar downstairs. The Kookaburra Lodge at 14 Heath St, is one of the better motels, and has an excellent restaurant, while the cheapest of the lot is the Grand Canyon Motel, less than 1km north of the town centre on Grampians Road. There’s also a wide choice of self-catering accommodation: the Kingsway Holiday Flats on Grampians Road are spartan, but cheap and clean, and have TV and a fully equipped kitchen. If you can afford to splurge a bit, try the Grampians Wonderland Cabins on Ellis Street, just off the Grampians Tourist Road on the way to Brambuk – where you’ll find beautiful two-bedroom timber cabins in a bushland setting. On the site of the old YHA hostel in Halls Gap, on the corner of Buckler Street and Grampians Road, a much bigger hostel is scheduled to open soon. It will be built according to environmentally friendly principles, recycling waste water and using solar electricity and wood-heating stoves. The backpacker busline Oz Experience stops overnight in the Grampians, in summer it uses the High Spirit Outdoor Base Camp with tents and pit toilets in the middle of the national park. There’s no booking for the campsites in the national park – they operate on a first-come, first-served basis. A permit is required: fill in a form and put your money into the box at the site, or buy one from the visitors centre or from tourist offices in nearby towns. Bushcamping is allowed in the park, except in the Wonderland Range and within 100m of a dam, river or creek, or within 50m of a road. Besides the basic park campsites, there are dozens of caravan parks in the vicinity. The most convenient, Halls Gap Caravan Park, is right opposite the shopping centre and thus a bit noisy, but it’s well equipped, and at the start of many walks. Lake Fyans Holiday Park at Pomonal, 13km away, has comfortable cabins, basic caravans and tent sites, plus canoes and tennis and volleyball courts.