The striking Grampians National Park is one of Victoria’s most popular holiday destinations. This renowned 168,000 ha mountain range is home for almost a third of Victoria's indigenous plant species. The Grampians offers some of the most amazing views and magnificent natural beauty to be found in Australia. Experience close encounters with fauna such as, Kangaroo’s and Wallabies, Emus, Echidnas and reptiles, ensuring an enjoyable and valued experience.

The Park also contains over 100 Koori art sites and is rich European history. Aboriginal occupation of the Grampians dates back beyond 5,000 years and the area contains the majority of Aboriginal rock art sites in south-east Australia.

The park is particularly important for its abundance of bird species. The low open shrubby woodlands in the park support many nectar-feeding birds, and tall open forests which are important for hollow-dependent species, such as the Powerful Owl. Large populations of Emus are found throughout the lowland areas.

Over 40 species of mammal have been recorded in the park. They include Kangaroos, Possums, Gliders, Echidnas and Koalas. The park supports populations of Red-necked Wallabies and Grey Kangaroos, and a growing population of Black Wallabies

The park contains over 900 indigenous plant species. Twenty of these, including the Grampians Gum and Grampians Parrot-pea, are found nowhere else in the world. Fire plays a major role in the ecology of the Grampians' vegetation and fauna.

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.