Mount William & Reeds Lookout (and other sights), The Grampians, Victoria, Australia

By Rob Scott • February 17, 2007

After drunkenly deciding to change our course, not unlike the ill-fated captain Gibb, we stuck to our guns in the morning and headed inland toward the Grampians National Park.

We’ve already mentioned the journey up there in a previous post, so I’ll leave it out.

Borough Huts Campsite (camp ground)

At the tourist information centre at Dunkeld we had been incorrectly informed that the first two camp grounds were open, so we ended up staying at Borough Huts. This was a very nice campground, and we made a new friend in a kangaroo while we were there. The toilets were another ‘long-drop’ but were not too shabby.

Mount William

After a good long nights sleep in our tent, we set off towards Mount William in the car, having packed all our gear up, as the tourist information guy had said it was a nice drive and we could walk to the summit easily from the car park. He had already struck out twice with his campsite cha, and with his lack of fireban knowledge, so he must have known something? Well, yes and no, he was mostly correct. It is possible to drive up most of Mount William (the views are superb) and park at the top. However, since the fires of January 2006, the path to the very top is closed as it is unsafe.

There is a way to the top up a park road, though, and we took that route, which was safe, if a little steep, and not particularly exciting. We met a really nice guy who was coming down on the way up who told us that there were some parrots higher up we would see if we were quiet. Not sure if he meant the birds I got photos of (which are Gang-Gang cockatoos) but I’m glad he warned us to lookout as they were literally sitting next to us!

When we reached the top (about 2 kilometres walk) we found the views to be top notch. I thought it was necessary to do my best Michael Jackson impression on the marker stone. However, it was extremely windy up there, so I am grimacing a little, mostly due to the 500 metre sheer drop if I was blown off…

That afternoon, after we had lunched in the Pajero, we went on to Halls Gap, where there is a great visitor centre. We found out where there were more campsites and also where best to buy some more provisions for the next few days - in Stawell, where there is a supermarket.

The Plantation Campsite

We decided upon The Plantation campsite mainly because it was the first one on the way back from the shops, though we took an unsurfaced road which was pretty bad going, even in an all-terrain vehicle like ours. The campsite itself was pretty nice and we made a good roaring fire, and cooked some chicken balti on it. Good bush tucker.

As is usual for us, we had stumbled accross an event which we had known nothing about beforehand in Halls Gap, their annual Jazz Festival, so after tea, Linda went for a driving lesson, and we spent the evening listening to jazzzzzzz.

A very nice day.

Reeds Lookout

The next morning, we headed back through Halls Gap to get some water and fuel and then took the road up towards the Zumstein region, which looked nice on the map. The onmipresent brown signs told us that Reeds Lookout was approaching, and as it was nearly dinner time, we stopped…

What a place!

The views there are terrific and there is a short walk to “the balconies” which overhang a steep drop to rolling bushland as far as the eye can see. It is difficult to zoom the camera out far enough to capture the whole panorama, but trust me when I say the view is breathtaking.

After Reeds Lookout we went on through the Zumstein region driving along one of the best roads I’ve ever been on, which can only be described as precarious, due to the steep drops on one side, and constant hairpin and right-angle corners! Unfortunately, Zumstein has no campsite, but does have barbeques and toilets that use water(!), as we’d eaten but did not have a place to stay, we continued on the road towards the “Troopers Rest” campsite…

More Mount William and Reeds Lookout sites: