This morning started very early. We were up before the sun and walked the short distance from our place to the centre of Dunkeld to share in the Dawn Service with the locals for Anzac Day. It was quite special to be able to join in with another town’s service. It was a short, but really respectful and reflective service.
After heading back home and having a bit of breakfast, we packed some snacks and lunch and headed for the eastern side of Gariwerd (Grampians) today! We started the day at what is now known as Halls Gap, but the Djab Wurrung people know it as Budja Budja. We hopped out for toilet stop and a quick wander along the shops. Importantly, the car needed petrol as well – ideally, I’m trying to only use Ampol and Shell for petrol, because that’s what the fuel cards for the car lease are. As we get a bit more remote, it’s going to require a bit of planning… and I probably let it slip a bit in the last couple of days! But thankfully, enough petrol to get to Halls Gap, and now plenty to get onto Bendigo & Echuca tomorrow.
The first stop as we climbed the hills around Halls Gap was The Balconies. It was a fairly comfortable 1 hour return walk out to some stunning views out over the valley. The rock formations that make up The Balconies are quite amazing to see as you get to the end of the walk. It was quite an easy walk for us all – not really hilly at all, which was definitely welcomed by the kids.
The next stop on day 2 of our Gariwerd adventures was MacKenzie Falls. It was interesting to read that Major Mitchell, who first surveyed the Grampians in 1836, tried to record the names of areas using the names of local Aboriginal people. But he wasn’t able to, and so it was simply called MacKenzie Falls, after a friend of his. Fast forward to today, and we know that the Jardwadjali people (the neighbouring language group to the Djab Wurrung people) called the falls Migunang wirab. I’m grateful for the chance to spend time on this trip learning more about the First Nations peoples in each area, and helping the kids grow in their knowledge and understanding as well.
We arrived at a very busy MacKenzie Falls! It’s clearly a very popular lunch picnic area, as well as the walk down to the falls. There are plenty of signs around reminding you that it’s a really, really steep walk down. It’s a very well paved path down to the falls, with handrails the whole way – but it is definitely really steep. Going down is fine – although the stairs going down get really narrow along the way as well. We made it all the way down fairly quickly and found some space amongst the crowds for some photos (it really was super busy down the bottom!). After admiring the ferocity of those falls (apparently one of the biggest falls in Victoria), we kept walking along the track beside the river a bit further to find some space for lunch – the track keeps going on much longer walks down the Mackenzie River. We found some space on a few rocks beside the track and enjoyed our sandwiches to fuel up for the steep walk back up.
Once we made the slow and steep trek back to the top, we ran into a local emu – he clearly enjoys tormenting all the picnickers!
On the road back down towards Halls Gap, we stopped in at one final lookout for some stunning views looking east off Gariwerd (Grampians), over Halls Gap and across to Stawell and beyond.
Back down the bottom, Halls Gap was quite a bit busier than it was when we drove through it earlier in the day! Clearly a lot of people had a similar idea to us for Anzac Day adventures. We stopped off in town and enjoyed some really good ice cream together to finish off the day’s adventures.
We were home in time to sit down and watch the Anzac Day AFL game on the TV – so it’s been a final afternoon in Dunkeld just relaxing on the couch watching that, with the boys in and out half watching the game and half kicking a footy around in the backyard. Dunkeld has been a really beautiful little town – there’s plenty of bigger and more popular places to stay when you want to visit Gariwerd (Grampians), but Dunkeld has been perfect for us.
