Halls Gap
Halls Gap is nestled deep in the heart of the Grampians, where the valley gets squeezed in tight between those imposing sandstone mountain ranges, and the Grampians National Park somehow just about reaches into this tiny village. Walking trails lead off towards the Wonderland Range where you’ll see kangaroos chomping on the open grass, and […]
Gariwerd National Park
The Grampians (Gariwerd) National Park just explodes out of the ground in western Victoria — sandstone ridges, eucalypt forest and long valleys stretching out in every direction between them. And then there’s Mount William (Duwul) at 1,167 metres, but you only get a sense of the size of this place when you consider it’s not […]
Pomonal
Pomonal sits on the eastern side of Grampians National Park, where vineyards, hobby farms and native gardens run towards the foot of the ranges. Lake Fyans is nearby, Mount William rises deeper into Gariwerd, and Halls Gap is just down the road. Only 356 people were recorded here in the 2021 Census. That scale matters. […]
Great Western
Great Western has a prime spot on the Western Highway, surrounded by vineyards as far as the eye can see — that’s the western Victorian plains out there, with the Grampians rising up in the distance to the south. Wine has been coming out of this place since the 1860s & some of those old […]
Wartook Valley
Wartook Valley sits pretty on the western side of Grampians National Park, where the Gariwerd sandstone ranges erupt up sharply out of the Wimmera farmland. Lake Wartook is nestled at the foot of the Mt Difficult Range — and it’s only a short trip from there to Hollow Mountain, Mount Zero, Mount Stapylton and ancient […]
Dunkeld
Dunkeld is perched at the southern edge of Grampians National Park, where the rugged shapes of Mount Sturgeon and Mount Abrupt suddenly thrust upward from the western Victorian plains. Back in 2021, that’s where you could find a whopping 688 people calling the place home. But from town, it’s impossible to ignore the looming mountains […]
Horsham
Horsham sits on the Wimmera River, around 300 kilometres north-west of Melbourne, where the landscape opens into the broad wheat and wool country of the Wimmera region. Mount Arapiles breaks the horizon to the west; the Grampians Range rises to the south-east; beyond Horsham, the Wimmera Mallee stretches north.I found the contrast more compelling than […]
Mount Arapiles
Mount Arapiles – or Dyurrite as the locals call it – sticks out of the Wimmera plains like a sore thumb in western Victoria. The summit – a mere 369 metres above sea level – towers 200 metres above the surrounding countryside. And when set against the wide open farmland below, it looks all the […]
Ararat
Ararat can look, to all intents and purposes, like just another town on the Western Highway to the Grampians, but those broad streets and 19th-century buildings tell a pretty unusual story. In 1857, around 700 Chinese miners, on their way to Clunes, stumbled upon alluvial gold at Canton Lead. And within weeks, a staggering 20,000 […]
Lake Fyans
Lake Fyans stretches out at the foot of the eastern Grampians (Gariwerd) — a whole different scene from the mountains around Stawell and Halls Gap. Where the sandstone ridges have crumbled away, the lake opens up, its sandy banks a perfect match for the surrounding countryside. On the far side of the lake — if […]