The Grampians —Gariwerd to their Aboriginal owners— are one of Victoria's great secrets: a chain of sandstone ranges rising suddenly above the plains of the west of the state, with breathtaking lookouts, hidden waterfalls, kangaroos grazing on the streets of Halls Gap and, above all, the largest concentration of Aboriginal rock art in south-eastern Australia. It's the perfect destination for anyone who wants nature, walks and ancient culture just three hours from Melbourne.
The classic postcard is The Pinnacle, a lookout reached after a walk between towering rock walls, with dizzying views over the Halls Gap valley. But there's much more: the rocky ledges of The Balconies, the panoramas from Reeds and Boroka Lookout, the MacKenzie and Silverband waterfalls, rock shelters with paintings thousands of years old, and wildlife that's easy to spot (kangaroos, emus, cockatoos). And in the middle sits Halls Gap, a relaxed little town that's ideal as a base, with the Brambuk Aboriginal cultural centre as an essential first stop.
This guide sorts out all the practical stuff: which lookouts and waterfalls to see and in what order, how much park entry and tours from Melbourne cost, where to stay in Halls Gap, when to go for good weather and wildlife, and —very important for 2026— which areas are closed for works. It also explains how to respect the rock art and the culture of the Jardwadjali and Djab Wurrung peoples. Everything verified as of July 2026.
Gariwerd is a central place in the Dreaming of the Jardwadjali (Jadawadjali) and Djab Wurrung peoples, its Traditional Owners, who have been here for more than 20,000 years. According to their tradition, the great Ancestral Spirit Bunjil created these ranges, their lakes, rivers and animals. The park holds around 60 rock art sites with more than 4,000 motifs —90% of Victoria's rock art— and nearby, in the Black Range, is Bunjil's Shelter, the only known painting of the creator Bunjil in Australia. The European name 'Grampians' was given by surveyor Thomas Mitchell in 1836; since 1998 the dual name Gariwerd has applied. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The smallest state on the mainland and the richest during the gold rush: land of the Kulin nations, colonised from 1835 around Melbourne, transformed by the gold of Ballarat and Bendigo and by the Eureka rebellion of 1854, seen as the cradle of Australian democracy.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
These ranges, rising abruptly from the plains of western Victoria, have a name far older than 'Grampians': Gariwerd. That is what their Traditional Owners call them: the Jardwadjali (Jadawadjali) and Djab Wurrung peoples, who have lived in this region for more than 20,000 years. To them, Gariwerd is not a tourist landscape. It is a central place in their Dreaming, so full of meaning that almost every peak, valley and cave has its own story.
At the heart of that worldview is Bunjil, the great Ancestral Spirit who takes the form of an eagle (Werpil). Tradition holds that Bunjil created the world: the mountains, lakes, forests, rivers, plains and sea, and every plant and animal too. When he finished shaping the beautiful sandstone ranges of Gariwerd, he would often take the form of the eagle to look over his work from the air. That is why this place is sacred: it is, quite literally, one of the creator's works.
For thousands of years Gariwerd was a place of plenty and of gathering. Its ranges gave shelter, water, medicinal plants and game, and its caves and rock overhangs served as both homes and canvases. The Jardwadjali and Djab Wurrung had a deep seasonal knowledge of the land, and different groups met in the ranges for ceremonies, trade and marriages. All that life is recorded above all in something that survives today and makes Gariwerd unique: its rock art.
Gariwerd holds one of Australia's most important cultural treasures: around 90% of all the rock art in the state of Victoria is found here. About 60 sites have been identified, with more than 4,000 painted motifs (hand stencils, human figures, animals, lines and symbols), made in ochre by the Jardwadjali and Djab Wurrung over thousands of years. Each site has an Aboriginal-language name and its own meaning: Ngamadjidj ('the white ones', or the spirits), Gulgurn Manja ('the hands of the children'), Billimina, Manja... These aren't just 'drawings'. They are living records of an ancient culture, bound up with stories, ceremonies and law.
The most extraordinary of them all lies just outside the park, in the Black Range near Stawell: Bunjil's Shelter. It is the only known rock-art depiction in all of Australia of Bunjil, the creator being. The painting shows Bunjil with his two dingoes (Djurt-djurt and Thara), and it is one of the most significant Aboriginal sites in the south-east of the continent. Standing before the only image of the creator painted by ancestral hands is a privilege that commands respect.
This art is fragile and sacred. That is why it is now protected by grilles and walkways, touching it or using flash is forbidden, and many sites are best visited with Aboriginal guides. The Brambuk cultural centre in Halls Gap, run by Jardwadjali and Djab Wurrung communities, is the best place to understand what it all means before you set off to visit the shelters. Understanding the rock art means understanding that Gariwerd was, and still is, a place lived in and loved long before any outsider arrived.
The first European to arrive was the Scottish surveyor and explorer Thomas Mitchell ('Major Mitchell'), in 1836, during his expedition through the west of what is now Victoria. Mitchell was so dazzled by the fertility of the plains that he named them 'Australia Felix' (fortunate Australia). When he saw these sandstone ranges rising above the flatlands, they reminded him of the Grampian Mountains of his native Scotland. So, with a stroke of the pen, he called them 'the Grampians', wiping from the official maps the name Gariwerd that they had carried for thousands of years.
Mitchell's romanticism had devastating consequences. His glowing reports of fertile pastures and gentle rivers worked as an open invitation to colonisation. From the late 1830s, waves of pastoralists poured into western Victoria to take over those lands. Mitchell's own expedition had already left violence in its wake, with clashes and an Aboriginal man shot and wounded. What followed was worse: as the pastoral runs spread across Gariwerd and the Wimmera, they brought dispossession, frontier conflict and massacres that devastated the Jardwadjali and Djab Wurrung peoples.
Within a few decades, the region's Aboriginal population had collapsed through disease, violence and the loss of access to their Country. Many survivors were confined to missions such as Lake Condah and Ebenezer, far from their lands and ceremonies, where there were attempts to stamp out their languages and culture. The 'wild' beauty that tourists admire today is, to a large extent, a land that was emptied of its people by force. Behind every lookout and every waterfall in the Grampians lies a story of dispossession that is only now starting to be told out loud.
The recent history of these ranges is the story of a name and a culture coming back. In 1984, after almost a century of neglect, the Grampians National Park was created to protect the heart of the ranges. Then in the late 1980s the Victorian government began a pioneering process: restoring the Aboriginal names of the landscape. In 1991, after two years of consultation, the park was officially renamed Grampians (Gariwerd) National Park, and many landforms got back their Jardwadjali and Djab Wurrung names. It was controversial: a change of government in 1992 reversed part of the measure. But the Geographic Place Names Act of 1998 reinstated the dual-naming system, and today 'Gariwerd' appears alongside 'Grampians' on the National Heritage List.
That gesture, giving the name back, is part of a broader recognition. Through organisations such as the Budja Budja Aboriginal Cooperative and the Brambuk cultural centre, the Jardwadjali and Djab Wurrung peoples are increasingly involved in caring for and interpreting the park, and their culture is now one of Gariwerd's great attractions rather than a footnote. In recent years, Parks Victoria has drawn up management plans that better protect the rock-art sites and bring Aboriginal voices into decision-making, sometimes amid debate over how to balance tourism, rock climbing and cultural conservation.
Today Gariwerd is both a spectacular natural park and a living cultural landscape. Visitors can hike to The Pinnacle, watch kangaroos at dusk in Halls Gap and take photos from Boroka, but they can also stand before paintings thousands of years old, hear the story of Bunjil creating these ranges and understand that they are walking on a creator's work and on the ancestral land of two peoples who never left. Calling this place by its full name, Grampians (Gariwerd), is in itself a small act of justice.
