The team behind Victorian regional travel project One Hour Out share some of their favorite walking finds in the state.
Winton Wetlands
Located between Benalla and Wangaratta in the Yorta Yorta country, the Winton wetlands are a place that shares stories of the past, present and even the future.
One of the largest restoration projects in the Southern Hemisphere, the wetlands staff is on a mission to renew the ecology of the reserve and enhance its natural, scientific, cultural and ecological significance. There is a great emphasis on education here.
The vastness of the area makes it easy to spend a day here and your first stop should be the welcome trail with information about the wetlands, local flora and fauna and historical anecdotes.
The Lotjpatj Natjan Danak sculpture route is not to be missed. The track features works by fifteen Yorta Yorta artists, representing their living culture. It’s really quite profound to engage with their stories through art.
The abundant wildlife here also makes it really special, and you’ll spot free-roaming kangaroos, lizards and various birds.
You can choose to visit here for a day, but we recommend packing your camping gear and bikes and setting up a base for a few nights or longer. Gaze at the stars in the clear, unobstructed northeastern sky, wake to the sound of birdsong, admire the natural Australian bushland, take a sunrise walk along one of a range of hiking trails, or simply sit back and enjoy the tranquility.
– Dellaram Vreeland
Diamond Bay
Diamond Bay is one of those places where locals would prefer to remain a secret – so we sincerely apologize to the residents of Sorrento.
This protected cove is located three blocks off the main road that runs from Sorrento to Blairgowrie and the views from the wooden deck are breathtaking, especially at sunset.
From there, a staircase takes you down to the caramel sand, which in turn extends to the sparkling turquoise water. The sandstone cliffs surrounding the bay are reminiscent of the small bays along the Great Ocean Road with layered sand compositions ranging from light blonde to ocher.
Because the bay is protected by two rock outcrops, this is one of the quieter spots on the ocean side of the Mornington Peninsula and a relatively safe place for swimming.
Diamond Bay is part of the coastal walk that traverses the 30km of tea tree-covered cliffs and beaches overlooking Bass Strait, from Cape Schanck Lighthouse to Point Nepean National Park. If time isn’t on your side, you can drive east from Diamond Bay along the coast to St Paul’s lookout point and take in views over a collection of small rock outcrops known as the Bay of Islands. Taking the west path along the cliffs will take you to Coppins Track with beautiful views of Sorrento as the sun sets.
Be sure to stick to the beach and designated paths as the area is undergoing an extensive revegetation program and contains a number of vulnerable middens.
If you decide to take the coastal walk towards Cape Schanck, the truly adventurous can join the Two Bays walking route to cross the peninsula to Dromana. This 26 km route takes you through lush green fern gullies, the eucalyptus forests of Greens Bush and climbs to a height of almost 300 meters above sea level as you cross Arthurs Seat.
The temptation then is to join the 28km bay trail all the way back to Sorrento to complete the ultimate 100km hike of the Mornington Peninsula.
–Jay Dillon
Yeddonba Aboriginal cultural site
Thylacines roamed Australia for 30 million years. About 4,000 years ago, their numbers on the mainland began to decline as dingo numbers grew. Two thousand years ago, thylacine was extinct on the mainland; and when the Europeans arrived they called them Tasmanian tigers. The last Tasmanian tiger died alone in a Hobart zoo in the 1930s. But an ocher image of a thylacine can be seen on the wall of an overhanging rock at the base of Mount Pilot. It was painted by ancestors of the local Dhudhuroa people when these striped marsupials hunted for small prey in the boxwood forest in the granite hills around what is now Beechworth. You can see this remarkable, though fading, image along with what appears to be a goanna climbing a tree at the Yeddonba Aboriginal cultural site.
Although the images are line drawings, the artist has captured some of the movement and character of the thylacine and goanna.
You can find the site on Yeddonba Road, off Toveys Road, off Beechworth-Chiltern Road, in north-east Victoria. There is a short, self-guided walk through the boxwood forest to where there is a boardwalk that brings you face to face with the ancient art. It is a sacred place not only for the Dhudhuroa people, but also for other local clans who met for ceremonies on what is now known as Mount Pilot.
–Richard Cornish
Australian Botanic Gardens
If you are a nature lover, environmentally conscious, recycler, reuser or enthusiast of all things sustainability, you will be intrigued by a botanical garden built entirely on a landfill.
You read that correctly. A botanical garden, spread over a 25 hectare landfill and not a rose garden in sight.
Through community involvement, the masterplan for the site included themed gardens that will both rehabilitate the land and build on the cultural, historical and environmental features of the Goulburn Valley. The infrastructure works include re-establishing the floodway in life-giving wetlands that are flooded every year by the nearby Goulburn and Broken rivers.
Honeysuckle Rise offers panoramic views over the Shepparton area and we recommend that you avoid the heat of the day and enjoy the views over the city at sunrise or sunset. There are a range of cycle and walking trails to explore, from the riverside trails to the Honeysuckle Track. They are all accessible and vary in length.
A new section in development is dedicated to the land management practices of the Yorta Yorta people before European settlement and will be planted to represent the four bioregions of the Goulburn Valley.
The landscape is still a work in progress, but how often do you get to see the beginnings of something so important?
–Jay Dillon
Cultural landscape Budj Bim
Recognized by UNESCO in 2019, over 6,000 years old and just a 40-minute drive from Port Fairy and near Heywood, the cultural landscape of Budj Bim is the remnant of a vast series of stone villages built on the edge of an intricate system of water channels and weirs by the Gunditjmara people from about 4,000 BC until colonization. The water system was built around a large body of water, called Lake Condah by the settlers, to catch kooyang, or the southern shortfin eel. The lake was drained in the mid-20th century.
In 2022, after decades of planning and working with the local community, the Gunditjmara people opened their sacred landscape to visitors
This vast and powerfully rugged site has been carefully and quietly cared for by the local people of Gunditjmara and the drained lake has been returned to close to its original level.
In 2022, after decades of planning and working with the local community, the Gunditjmara people opened their sacred landscape to visitors. A $2 million visitor center complex features a cafe and interpretive space facilities that will allow local Gunditjmara people to harvest, process and smoke eels again, but now in a state-of-the-art facility. Open Wednesday to Sunday, it overlooks the lake and offers visitors the chance to taste real smoked shortfin eel in delicious ways.
The two-hour tours are a real eye-opener: from the visitor information center you will be taken to the start of the lava flows that created Lake Condah and told some stories about the area. We discovered that Budj Bim erupted about 27,000 years ago, spewing red-hot lava for tens of kilometers and forming Lake Condah.
A stone ax found by archaeologists beneath the lava flow indicates that people have been in this area since before the eruption. That the Gunditjmara people are still telling the story of the eruption 37,000 years later is a likely candidate for the oldest story still told on Earth.
The half-day tour covers these stories and also allows time to delve deeper into this maze-like structure of ancient reservoirs, canals and village sites. It took us to an ancient smoking tree, a hollowed out manna gum under which scientists have discovered quantities of eel fat, obtained from eels when they were smoked to preserve them for trade. The tour also takes in old weirs and a dam where Kooyang was trapped and held.
The day tour immerses you in the cultural perspective of Gunditjmara. You will visit a volcano that was eroded by an explosion and is now filled with a deep crater lake. As the guides take you to their weirs, stone huts and celestial calendar sites and you share a delicious morning tea and lunch – including eel – you begin to see the world through the eyes of the Gunditjmara people. The eel story is just the beginning.
–Richard Cornish