Gariwerd, Victoria, Australia

In May of 2024 I did a motorcycle trip in beautiful Gariwerd in western Victoria, and have posted some photos below. Gariwerd is the aboriginal name for the mountain range that is more commonly called the Grampians, named by early white settlers after the Grampians in Scotland.  With no disrespect to those early settlers, I can’t think of any good reason for naming a mountain range after one to which it bears no resemblance at all, so I prefer the original name, Gariwerd. In November I spent a couple of days hiking there and really enjoyed being surrounded by the beautiful countryside.  More photos from the hikes are also posted below.  It’s a really special place and I thought it would be good to get some photos from the air, but nature has intervened in a cruel way. Extensive bushfires before Christmas destroyed about 40% of the forest. It will come back in time but for the moment a lot of habitat has been destroyed, so my flight has mostly just recorded the devastation. The western side of the range and the farming land between the two arms of the range are largely untouched but the eastern part is completely burnt.

Click on the images for a larger view.

The motorcycle trip

My friend, Mike, is from Warrnambool so we met up around midday at Ararat, roughly halfway between our home locations, and rode to Halls Gap at the northern end of the range, where we stayed the night.  In the morning, we followed some of the local winding roads before eventually making our way to Dunkeld at the southern end of the range, where we went our separate ways.

Mike’s Ducati and me with my Suzuki
Some of the local residents in Halls Gap
These young kangaroos were right in the middle of town and not at all disturbed by our presence
This cheeky sod landed on my knee and wanted a share of my icecream
The fire and the wine kept me warm while we waited for our pizzas
The view of the main range from Halls Gap in the morning

The hiking trip

Mike and I so enjoyed the beauty of the area that we decided to meet up again for a couple of days hiking in the area, something not so easily done in motorbike boots.  I had been hiking in the area a couple of times before, but the last time was as a school teacher more than 30 years ago, accompanying a bunch of year 8 students, 13 to 14 years old.  My main memory of the trip was that on a long walk from the Pinnacle, one of the high points, down to Halls Gap, one of the women teachers sprained her ankle really badly.  We made a stretcher for her out of a couple of fallen branches strung with kids coats and jumpers and John, the other male teacher, and I carried her about two thirds of the way down the mountain. The kids were really good and helped where they could on the wider parts of the track, but a lot of it was narrow and in some places so steep that the woman had to crawl.  She was a solid woman and my arms ached for days afterwards.  It was more fun without a bunch of kids in tow but the mountains seem to have gotten steeper as I have grown older.

The Pinnacle walk via the “Grand Canyon” and “Silent Street”

The “Grand” Canyon
Me in Silent Street – and it really was silent in there.
The rather precarious looking Pinnacle lookout afforded wonderful views
Looking down to Halls Gap from the Pinnacle
We saw dozens of these critters – Eastern Water Skinks – mostly about 20 cm long

The balconies

This lookout is only about a kilometre from the car park, so a pretty gentle walk.

Mike at the Balconies lookout – the actual rock formations are a lot more precarious than they appear in the photograph and have been fenced off to dissuade people from walking on them

McKenzie and Fish Falls from Zumsteins

This was a much longer hike. The top of the McKenzie falls can be reached from a top car park but we took the long route in from the Zumsteins picnic ground.

Fish Falls, on the McKenzie River
McKenzie Falls, also on the McKenzie River

The flight

This was only a little over two hours in the Sonex but I carried an auxiliary fuel tank holding an extra 14 litres, just in case, especially since my fuel flow meter has been reading very inaccurately lately.  I started out pretty early because it was going to be a hot day and thermals would make flying unpleasant by late morning.

My track on Google Earth

The total distance of the flight was about 300 miles or 480 km and took 2.2 hours. Navigation is straightforward over mostly open farming country.  I only planned my flight as far as the town of Stawell, pronounced Stall.  Stawell has quite a large airfield which was used as a base for water bombers during the fires.  It is also famous, within Australia anyway, for the Stawell Gift, professional foot races run every Easter.  These are handicap races and to show how big the handicaps can be, here’s a link to a 1996 Women’s 400 metre race. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUQLV4gnWNY Cathy Freeman, who went on to win the 400 metre gold medal at the 2000 Olympics, won both the 1995 and 1996 races even though she was starting 54 metres behind some of the other runners.

Here’s something else about Stawell.

There was a young boy from Stawell

Who would open his mouth wide to bawl

But to his chagrin

Found the flies would come in

That’s why Aussies all speak with a drawl

That’s not too far from the truth. Especially in farming areas with lots of livestock, flies are a real pest in summer.

From Stawell, I just followed my nose, south down the eastern side of the range, then cut across to the western side, back to Stawell and home to Kyneton.

The fire-damaged area from the Victorian Emergency Services website
On the eastern side of the range looking north
Travelling south along the range eastern side
Tracking west
Still tracking west – there are occasional unburned patches high in the range
Fire damage to the eastern arm of the range is complete
This is the open farming land between the east and west “arms” of the range
Finally some unburnt parts on the west
Flying east over the northern parts of the range

The fires had started in the south and were driven steadily northwards by southerly and variable winds.  The winds were not anything like as serious as the Santa Ana winds that have driven so much destruction in California recently, but the land is rugged, and there are few access roads for fire-fighting

A reservoir south east of Maryborough on the way home

In the last photograph, the land looks parched but that is typical of this part of Australia in Summer. Victoria is one of the more lush and green parts of Australia, but even here we are only a couple of hours flight from desert. The flight home was uneventful, the wind at ground level negligible, but the thermal activity made flying at circuit height a very bumpy ride.