Exploring the Grampians National Park.

After driving along the Great Ocean Road for a few days (here, here and here), the final stop on the Melbourne to Adelaide Road Trip was the beautiful, but often fire-ravaged Grampians National Park. Everything featured in this blog post was visited within a day. The Grampians really does deserve more time than that. Especially if you’re into hiking, climbing and other outdoors pursuits. This is my story.

Our hostel for these two nights was amazing. It was called Brambuk backpackers and had the nicest staff and the best community area. It also had a HUGE range of information about the local Aboriginal people and history of the Grampians. Here is a picture.

After going across to Brambuk cultural centre for a quick look and some breakfast (and the standard computer access so that I could check the Arsenal vs Chelsea score… That was pointless, I assume we lost) we headed into the Grampians. Rather than talk about how amazing the views we saw were I think I’ll just show you.

Broken Falls

Our first stop of the day. We had gone here to see McKenzie Falls, but saw a sign to this one too. Everyone else was walking to McKenzie so we wanted to see what they were missing out on. There was no one there when we got to the falls and I think they were worth the detour.

McKenzie Falls

Here you have the option to view the fall from the base or the top. I chose the base and I’m glad I did. While it was a slightly longer walk, I think it looks pretty sick. There were HUNDREDS of tourists though which made it hard to get a decent picture. If I was going to go again I’d go even earlier.

Lake Wartook

This lake provides water for over 30 towns. I assume they’re quite small. Apparently it’s not too bad for fishing too.

The Balconies

This was literally about 30 steps from the car park. You didn’t even have to walk to get these amazing views.

They were good. A short km walk further up it was even better.

Reid Lookout

I don’t advocate jumping safety rails to anyone. However, if you were so inclined… It does get you quite a nice picture.

Baroka Lookout

One of the more popular lookouts. There must be some pretty sick climbing around here.

(Walk to) The Pinnacle

We parked at the sundial car park and walked the 5-6km round-walk from there.

The Pinnacle

Note: These pictures were actually taken by someone standing on The Pinnacle. Unfortunately the Health and Safety powers that be requires a guide railing to be put around the rock to ensure people don’t fall and die. This is a good thing as it makes these amazing views more accessible to all people. However, I thought I’d scale a few rocks to try and get a couple of better pictures avoiding the railings and all the tourists there were clinging to them).

Silverband Falls

This picture shows the true destructive force of nature. This was caused by heavy rain and flooding a couple of years back.

We headed back to the backpackers in Halls Gap to watch the League final in front of the fire. I managed to call both finals that weekend (Sydney Swans and Melbourne Storm). It was an early night, an early start, a quick stop to buy a postcard and then a long car journey back. (Note: Not long by Australian standards, but long for a Brit).

That’s it for the Grampians and for this road trip. It was a truly exhausting but worthwhile trip regardless of the weather. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about it as much as I’ve enjoyed writing about it.

Inabit x