The team behind regional Victorian travel project One Hour Out share some of their favorite walking finds around the state.
Winton wetlands
Located between Benalla and Wangaratta in Yorta Yorta country, the Winton wetlands are a place where stories from the past, present and even the future are shared.
One of the largest restoration projects in the southern hemisphere, the wetlands collaborators are on a mission to restore the reserve’s ecology and enhance its natural, scientific, cultural and environmental significance. Education is given great importance here.
The sheer expanse of the area means it’s easy to spend a day here, and your first stop should be the welcoming trailhead, which includes information about the wetlands, local flora and fauna, and historical anecdotes.
The Lotjpatj Natjan Danak sculpture path is not to be missed. The track includes works of 15 Yorta Yorta artists representing their own life cultures. Engaging with their stories through art is truly profound.
The abundance of wildlife here also makes this place truly special; You will see free-roaming kangaroos, lizards and various birds.
You can choose to come here for the day, but we recommend packing your camping gear and bikes and setting up base for a few nights or longer. Stargaze in clear, unobstructed northeast skies, wake up to birdsong, admire the native Australian bush, go for a sunrise stroll on one of a range of walking trails or simply sit back and enjoy the tranquility.
– Dellaram Vreeland
Diamond Bay
Diamond Bay is one of those places that locals would prefer to keep a secret; We therefore offer our sincerest apologies to the residents of Sorrento.
This sheltered cove is set three blocks back from the main road from Sorrento to Blairgowrie, and the views from the wooden deck are breathtaking, especially at sunset.
From there, a staircase takes you to the caramel sands, which stretch out to meet the sparkling turquoise waters. The sandstone cliffs surrounding the bay are reminiscent of the small bays along the Great Ocean Road, with layered sand compositions ranging from pale yellow to dark yellow.
This is one of the quieter spots on the ocean side of the Mornington Peninsula and a relatively safe place for swimming, as the bay is protected by two rocky outcrops.
Diamond Bay is part of a 30-kilometer coastal walk through tea tree-lined cliff tops and beaches overlooking the Bass Strait from Cape Schanck Lighthouse to Point Nepean national park. If time is not on your side, heading east along the coast from Diamond Bay will take you to St Paul’s lookout and the view across to a collection of small rocky outcrops known as the Bay of Islands. Following the western path along the cliff tops will connect you to the Coppins Track, with excellent views of Sorrento as the sun sets.
Make sure you stick to the beach and designated footpaths, as the area has undergone an extensive planting program and contains many sensitive litter areas.
If you decide to take a coastal walk to Cape Schanck, the truly adventurous can join the Two Bays hiking trail to cross the peninsula to Dromana. This 26km trail will take you through lush fern valleys, the eucalyptus forests of Greens Bush and climb to almost 300 meters above sea level as you pass Arthurs Seat.
The temptation then is to join the 28km bay trail up to Sorrento to complete the ultimate 100km walking tour of the Mornington Peninsula.
–Jay Dillon
Yeddonba Aboriginal cultural site
Thylacines roamed Australia for 30 million years. About 4,000 years ago, as dingo numbers increased, their numbers on the mainland began to decline. 2000 years ago the thylacine became extinct on the mainland; When Europeans arrived, they called them Tasmanian tigers. The last Tasmanian tiger died alone in a zoo in Hobart in the 1930s. However, an ocher image of the thylacine can be seen on the wall of a rock outcropping at the base of Pilot Mountain. These striped marsupials were painted by ancestors of the local Dhudhuroa people as they hunted small prey in the box forest on the granite hills around what is today Beechworth. You can see this remarkable image, although faded with age, at the Yeddonba Aboriginal cultural site, with what appears to be a goanna climbing a tree.
Although the images are line drawings, the artist has captured some of the movements and characters of the thylacine and goanna.
You can find the site on Yeddonba Road, off Toveys Road, off the Beechworth-Chiltern Road in north-east Victoria. It’s a short, self-guided walk through the box forest to the site, where there’s a boardwalk that brings you face to face with ancient art. This is a sacred place not only for the Dhudhuroa people but also for other local clans who would meet for ceremonies at what is now Pilot Mountain.
–Richard Cornish
Australian Botanic Gardens
If you’re a nature lover, environmentally conscious, recycler, reuser, or just love anything to do with sustainability, you’ll be intrigued by a botanical garden built entirely on landfill.
You read that correctly. A botanical garden located opposite a 25-hectare landfill without a rose garden in sight.
Through community engagement, the master plan for the site included themed gardens that both rehabilitated the land and drew on the cultural, historical and environmental features of the Goulburn Valley. Infrastructure works included realigning the floodway to life-giving wetlands that the nearby Goulburn and Broken rivers inundate each year.
Honeysuckle Rise offers panoramic views of the Shepparton area and to visit we recommend avoiding the heat of the day and taking in the views of the city at sunrise or sunset. There are plenty of cycling and walking routes to explore, from the river paths to the Honeysuckle Track. All are accessible and vary in length.
A new section in the 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.
Landscape is still a work in progress, but how often do you see the beginning of something this important?
–Jay Dillon
Budj Bim cultural landscape
Recognized by Unesco in 2019, the Budj Bim cultural site, more than 6,000 years old and just 40 minutes’ drive from Port Fairy and near Heywood, is what remains of numerous stone villages built on the edge of a complex system of water channels. and weirs by the Gunditjmara people from about 4000 BC until colonization. The water system was built around a large area of water called Lake Condah by settlers to catch the kooyang, or southern shortfin eel. The lake was dried in the mid-20th century.
The Gunditjmara people opened their sacred landscape to visitors in 2022, after decades of planning and work with the local community.
This vast and extremely rugged place was carefully and quietly cultivated by the Gunditjmara natives, and the drained lake was restored to near its original levels.
The Gunditjmara people opened their sacred landscape to visitors in 2022, after decades of planning and working with the local community. A $2 million visitor center complex features a café and translation area facilities that will allow local Gunditjmara people to once again collect, process and smoke eels, but now it is a state-of-the-art facility. Open from Wednesday to Sunday, the restaurant overlooks the lake and offers visitors the chance to taste delicious real smoked shortfin eel.
Two-hour tours are truly eye-opening; From the visitor information center you are taken to the beginning of the lava flows that form Lake Condah and told some of the stories from the area. We learned that Budj Bim erupted about 27,000 years ago, spewing hot lava for miles and forming Lake Condah.
A stone ax found buried under a lava flow by archaeologists indicates that people had been in the area since the eruption. The fact that the Gunditjmara people are still telling the story of the eruption 37,000 years later is likely to be the oldest story still told on the planet.
The half-day tour includes these stories and also allows time for a more in-depth study of this maze-like structure of ancient reservoirs, canals and village areas. This led us to an old incense tree, a hollowed out manna gum; Under this tree, scientists determined the amount of eel oil obtained when smoking eels to preserve them for commercial purposes. The tour also includes old dykes and a dam where the kooyang was trapped.
The full-day tour immerses you in the Gunditjmara cultural perspective. You are visiting a volcano that was carved out by an eruption and is now filled with a deep crater lake. When guides take you to visit dykes, stone huts and celestial calendar sites, and 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