12 Places That Are Extraordinary In The Rain

Are you over the rain? At these other-worldly Australian locations water transforms the entire landscape – with phenomenal results.

It’s hard at times to think of anything positive when it’s drizzling outside. But as one of the world’s driest continents, a bit of rain casts a real-life magic spell over our deserts, swamps and cities.

It’s time to gaze upon these drenched destinations.

1. Uluru, NT

Conjure up in your mind’s eye the sandstone monolith that has become emblematic of Australia. Can you see it glowing red, surrounded by the dust of the Red Centre? It’s not always like this.

Once or twice a year, Uluṟu is transformed by heavy downpours. You’ll see waterfalls and rivulets cascade down channels of sandstone leaving you awestruck.

the Uluru Waterfalls cascading down the purple rocks — See the breathtaking waterfalls cascading down Uluṟu. (Image: Voyages Indigenous Tourism Australia)

2. Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre, SA

A trip to Australia’s largest salt lake should be on everyone’s travel to-see list – and the best way to appreciate it is from above.

a plane flying over Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre, SA — Admire Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre from above. (Image: South Australian Tourism Commission)

When Kati Thanda is dry (which is most of the time), stripes of moon-like shades of grey and sandy orange are at the country’s lowest point below sea level.

an aerial view of Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre, SA — Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre is Australia’s largest salt lake. (Image: South Australian Tourism Commission)

But come here after outback rain? A surge of water causes the expanse to turn pink, and it teems with breeding migratory birds.

a bird's-eye view of Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre, SA — Rain transforms Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre. (Image: South Australian Tourism Commission)

3. Darwin, NT

Sure, the Top End is more popular in the winter dry season. But in monsoon season? It becomes truly electrifying.

thunderstorm in Darwin — Monsoon season in Darwin is truly electrifying. (Image: Tourism NT/Paul Thomsen)

Starting by sitting on a Darwin balcony with a cold drink, soon your skin will pimple as the humidity drops. Ominous rumbles turn into outright roars and lines of white-purple crack across the sky. It’s a truly humbling experience.

4. Daintree Rainforest, Qld

The rainy Tropical North Queensland summer gets a bad rap. It’s true that the reef isn’t as clear, humidity hits hard when the sun is at its peak, and some walking tracks are bound to be inaccessible due to rain.

But these rainstorms contribute to what makes the Daintree so unique in the world. The emerald green leaves of the rainforest drip with vital moisture, waterfalls come to life and the happy hum of its wild residents intensifies.

rainforest and sunbeam morning — The Daintree Rainforest gets greener when it rains. (Image: kritdarat Atsadayuttmetee via Getty Images)

5. Tasmanian temperate rainforests

Over 3000 kilometres south you will find a very different type of rainforest. The remote, temperate rainforests of Western Tasmania are alive with ancient Gondwanan flora, Huon pines, climbing tree ferns, the beloved platypus, Tasmanian devils and pademelons.

the Huon pines in Western Tasmania Rainforest, Tas — The temperate rainforest of Western Tasmania is dotted with Huon pines. (Image: Stu Gibson)

No wonder hikers from all over the world come here to trek in this cool, damp wonderland.

King River in Tasmania — Get lost in the Tassie wilderness. (Image: Flow Mountain Bike)

6. Lorne waterfalls, Vic

On one hand, it’s extremely annoying that when the sun is out in summer, the Great Ocean Road becomes a nightmarish melee of cars and campervans (hello stress-induced mental breakdowns).

the Sheoak Falls in Lorne — Stop by Sheoak Falls in Lorne to break from your Great Ocean Road drive. (Image: Parks Victoria)

On the other hand, it’s a good excuse to come here for a winter trip instead and see the raging waterfalls of Lorne. The autumn and winter rains make the already impressive falls even more so. And with the thinned-out crowds, you might even spot a koala in the nearby eucalyptus trees.

a man sitting on the rocky edge of Lorne Waterfalls, Vic — See the raging waterfalls of Lorne. (Image: Visit Victoria)

7. Glow Worm Tunnel, Wollemi National Park, NSW

You can see these unearthly, bioluminescent larvae at any time of the year. But there is something special about passing from rain to the cool darkness of the old railway tunnel in Wollemi National Park in the Blue Mountains.

Smaller foot traffic to the Glow Worm Tunnel walking track in wet weather means you can hear the drips falling into the puddles on the floor, with the unearthly blue glow providing your very own light show.

the Glow Worm Tunnel, Wollemi National Park, NSW — Glow worms glisten with a mystical blue glow. (Image: Destination NSW)

8. Coalseam Conservation Park, WA

In the summer, Western Australia’s first mined coal deposit is hot and quiet. When the winter rains pass though? It bursts into life with colourful spring flowers.

the Coalseam Conservation Park in WA — Coalseam Conservation Park bursts to life with the rain. (Image: Tourism Western Australia)

People travel to this part of the Wheatbelt region for a tranquil day: wandering through the yellows and pinks of the everlastings, grevilleas and banksias, snapping photos as they go.

a 4WD driving along the wildflowers in Coalseam Conservation Park — Drive along the white wildflowers in Coalseam Conservation Park. (Image: Tourism Western Australia)

9. Gurruwiling (Arafura Swamp), NT

Have you heard of the Gurruwiling (Arafura Swamp) in Arnhem Land? It is a remote water system, and the largest freshwater ecosystem and paperbark swamp in Australia.

Gurruwiling is also the home to the Yolŋu and Bi peoples, who work hard to mitigate the impact of climate change through their land management. If you want to see its ethereal beauty but can’t access it in person, the swamp played the starring role in the 2006 film, ‘Ten Canoes’.

the Arafura Swamp in Arnhem Land — Gurruwiling, also known as the Arafura Swamp, is a pristine wetland in Arnhem Land.

10. Bungle Bungles, WA

Fly to Purnululu National Park in the East Kimberley and it’s impossible to miss the hive-like rock hills of the Bungle Bungles.

the Bungle Bungles ancient sandstone formations within Purnululu National Park — Walk among ancient sandstone formations within Purnululu National Park. (Image: Tourism Western Australia)

Exploring the cluster of red-orange and plum-dark striped stacks is heightened by the rainfall. We’re talking pools between the rocks, and springtime blooms of acacia flowers and grevilleas.

hikers navigating the Bungle Bungles, WA — Exploring the cluster of red-orange and plum-dark striped stacks is heightened by the rainfall. (Image: Tourism Western Australia)

11. Wentworth Falls, NSW

The downside of it raining when you go to see Wentworth Falls is that you might need to eat lunch in the car in the picnic area. But brave the weather and step outside (we promise it’s worth it).

an aerial view of the Wentworth Falls, NSW — The short hike to Wentworth Falls is incredibly worth it. (Image: Destination NSW)

Make it to the nearby lookout and look across the misty Jamison’s Valley. It’s there you will see the jaw-dropping site of a pounding Wentworth Falls, courtesy of the rain-swollen creeks of the Blue Mountains.

the three-tiered Wentworth Falls, NSW — Be enchanted by the sight of the three-tiered Wentworth Falls. (Image: Destination NSW)

12. Barmah-Millewa Forest, Vic

Close to the Murray River, the Barmah-Millewa Forest is a seriously underrated destination for the average traveller.

the Barmah-Millewa Forest near Murray River — Barmah-Millewa Forest is on Yorta Yorta land. (Image: Parks Victoria)

The traditional lands of the Yorta Yorta have river red gum floodplains, freshwater marshes, and birdlife as diverse as waterbirds, galahs, cockatoos and cockatiels. Floods that occur from winter into spring contribute to its title as wetlands of international significance.

an aerial view of Barmah-Millewa Forest, Vic — The wetlands have provided a constant source of nutrition for the Yorta Yorta People. (Image: Parks Victoria)

Video credit: Visit Victoria/Tourism Australia

The Grampians just might be the ultimate antidote for the metropolis, writes one returning Aussie ready to disconnect from the modern world and reconnect to the Great outdoors.

There are no kangaroos back in Chicago: they’re all here in the Grampians/Gariwerd . In the heart of the Grampians National Park’s main gateway town, Halls Gap, pods of eastern greys are eating grass beside my parked rental car beneath the stars. Next morning, when I see the backyard of my rented villa on the edge of town for the first time, there are kangaroos feeding beside a slow-moving creek, lined with river red gums.

Five hundred metres up the road, 50 or so of them are eating by the side of the road in a paddock. I pull over to watch and spot three emus. Yellow-tailed black cockatoos fly overhead towards the tall green mountains just beyond town.

‘Kee-ow, keee-oww’… their calls fuse with the maniacal cackle of a kookaburra (or 10). Gawd, how I’ve missed the sound of them. Far above, a wedge-tailed eagle watches, and there you go: the ‘great birds of Australia’ trifecta, all half a kay from the town limits.

Exchanging city chaos for country calm

kangaroos near Halls Gap, Grampians National Park — The park is renowned for its significant diversity of native fauna species. (Image: Visit Victoria/Robert Blackburn)

I’ve come to the Grampians to disconnect, but the bush offers a connection of its own. This isn’t just any bush, mind you. The Grampians National Park is iconic for many reasons, mostly for its striking sandstone mountains – five ridges run north to south, with abrupt, orange slopes which tumble right into Halls Gap – and for the fact there’s 20,000 years of traditional rock art. Across these mountains there are more than 200 recorded sites to see, created by the Djab Wurrung, Jardwadjali and Gunditjmara peoples. It’s just like our outback… but three hours from Melbourne.

I’ve come here for a chance at renewal after the chaos of my life in America’s third-largest city, Chicago, where I live for now, at the whim of a relative’s cancer journey. Flying into Melbourne’s airport, it only takes an hour’s drive to feel far away from any concept of suburbia. When I arrive in Halls Gap two hours later, the restaurant I’m eating at clears out entirely by 7:45pm; Chicago already feels a lifetime ago.

The trails and treasures of the Grampians

sunrise at Grampians National Park /Gariwerd — Grampians National Park /Gariwerd covers almost 2000 square kilometres. (Image: Ben Savage)

Though the national park covers almost 2000 square kilometres, its best-known landmarks are remarkably easy to access. From my carpark here, among the cockatoos and kangaroos on the fringe of Halls Gap, it only takes 60 seconds’ driving time before I’m winding my way up a steep road through rainforest, deep into the mountains.

Then it’s five minutes more to a carpark that serves as a trailhead for a hike to one of the park’s best vantage points, The Pinnacles . I walk for an hour or so, reacquainting myself with the smells and the sounds of the Aussie bush, before I reach it: a sheer cliff’s edge lookout 500 metres up above Halls Gap.

walking through a cave, Hollow Mountain — Overlooking the vast Grampians landscape from Hollow Mountain. (Image: Robert Blackburn)

There are hikes and there are lookouts and waterfalls all across this part of the park near town. Some are a short stroll from a carpark; others involve long, arduous hikes through forest. The longest is the Grampians Peaks Trail , Victoria’s newest and longest iconic walk, which runs 160 kilometres – the entire length of Grampians National Park.

Local activities operator Absolute Outdoors shows me glimpses of the trail. The company’s owner, Adrian Manikas, says it’s the best walk he’s done in Australia. He says he’s worked in national parks across the world, but this was the one he wanted to bring his children up in.

“There’s something about the Grampians,” he says, as he leads me up a path to where there’s wooden platforms for tents, beside a hut looking straight out across western Victoria from a kilometre up in the sky (these are part of the guided hiking options for the trail). “There are things out here that you won’t see anywhere else in Australia.” Last summer, 80 per cent of the park was damaged by bushfire, but Manikas shows me its regrowth, and tells me of the manic effort put in by volunteers from town – with firefighters from all over Australia – to help save Halls Gap.

wildflowers in Grampians National Park — Spot wildflowers. (Image: Visit Victoria)

We drive back down to Halls Gap at dusk to abseil down a mountain under the stars, a few minutes’ walk off the main road into town. We have headlamps, but a full moon is enough to light my way down. It takes blind faith to walk backwards down a mountain into a black void, though the upside is I can’t see the extent of my descent.

Grampians National Park at sunset. (Image: Wine Australian)

The stargazing is ruined by the moon, of course, but you should see how its glow lights up the orange of the sandstone, like in a theme park. When I’m done, I stand on a rocky plateau drinking hot chocolate and listening to the Aussie animals who prefer nighttime. I can see the streets of Halls Gap off in the distance on this Friday night. The restaurants may stay open until 8pm tonight.

What else is on offer in The Grampians?

a boat travelling along the Wimmera River inDimboola — Travelling along the Wimmera River in Dimboola. (Image: Chris McConville)

You’ll find all sorts of adventures out here – from rock climbing to canoeing to hiking – but there’s more to the Grampians than a couple of thousand square kilometres of trees and mountains. Halls Gap may be known to most people, but what of Pomonal, and Dimboola, and Horsham? Here in the shadow of those big sandstone mountains there are towns and communities most of us don’t know to visit.

And who knew that the Grampians is home to Victoria’s most underrated wine region ? My disconnection this morning comes not in a forest, but in the tasting rooms and winery restaurants of the district. Like Pomonal Estate, barely 10 minutes’ drive east of Halls Gap, where UK-born chef Dean Sibthorp prepares a locally caught barramundi with lentil, pumpkin and finger lime in a restaurant beside the vines at the base of the Grampians. Husband-and-wife team Pep and Adam Atchison tell me stories as they pour their prize wines (shiraz is the hero in these parts).

dining at Pomonal Estate — Dine in a restaurant beside vines at Pomonal Estate. (Image: Tourism Australia)

Three minutes’ drive back down the road, long-time mates Hadyn Black and Darcy Naunton run an eclectic cellar door out of a corrugated iron shed, near downtown Pomonal. The Christmas before last, half the houses in Pomonal burnt down in a bushfire, but these locals are a resilient lot.

The fires also didn’t stop the construction of the first art centre in Australia dedicated to environmental art in a nature-based precinct a little further down the road (that’s Wama – the National Centre for Environmental Arts), which opened in July. And some of the world’s oldest and rarest grape vines have survived 160 years at Best’s Wines, outside the heritage town of Great Western. There’s plantings here from the year 1868, and there’s wines stored in century-old barrels within 150-year-old tunnels beneath the tasting room. On the other side of town, Seppelt Wines’ roots go back to 1865. They’re both only a 30-minute drive from Halls Gap.

Salingers of Great Western — Great Western is a charming heritage town. (Image: Griffin Simm)

There’s more to explore yet; I drive through tiny historic towns that barely make the map. Still part of the Grampians, they’re as pretty as the mountains behind them: full of late 19th-century/early 20th-century post offices, government offices and bank buildings, converted now to all manner of bric-a-brac stores and cafes.

The Imaginarium is one, in quirky Dimboola, where I sleep in the manager’s residence of an old National Australia Bank after a gourmet dinner at the local golf club, run by noted chef and teacher, Cat Clarke – a pioneer of modern Indigenous Australian cooking. Just south, I spend an entire afternoon at a winery, Norton Estate Wines, set on rolling calico-coloured hills that make me think of Tuscany, chit-chatting with owners Chris and Sam Spence.

Being here takes me back two decades, when I lived here for a time. It had all seemed as foreign as if I’d driven to another planet back then (from Sydney/Warrane), but there seemed something inherently and immediately good about this place, like I’d lived here before.

And it’s the Australian small-town familiarity of the Grampians that offers me connection back to my own country. Even in the better-known Halls Gap, Liz from Kerrie’s Creations knows I like my lattes with soy milk and one sugar. And while I never do get the name of the lady at the local Ampol station, I sure know a lot about her life.

Kookaburras on a tree — Kookaburras are one of some 230 bird species. (Image: Darren Donlen)

You can be a local here in a day; how good is that? In Chicago, I don’t even know who my neighbour is. Though each day at dusk – when the kangaroos gather outside my villa, and the kookaburras and the black cockatoos shout out loud before settling in to sleep – I prefer the quieter connection I get out there in the bush, beneath these orange mountains.

A traveller’s checklist

Staying there

Sleep beside the wildlife on the edge of Halls Gap at Serenity .

Playing there

abseiling down Hollow Mountain — Hollow Mountain is a popular abseiling site.

Go abseiling under the stars or join a guided hike with Absolute Outdoors . Visit Wama , Australia’s first environmental art centre. Check out Dimboola’s eccentric Imaginarium .

Eating there

steak, naan bread and beer at Paper Scissors Rock in Halls Gap — Paper Scissors Rock in Halls Gap serves a great steak on naan bread.

Eat world-class cuisine at Pomonal Estate . Dine and stay at much-revered icon Royal Mail Hotel in Dunkeld. The ‘steak on naan’ at Halls Gap brewhouse Paper Scissors Rock , can’t be beat.

Dunkeld Arboretum in Grampians National Park — The serene Dunkeld Arboretum.

For Halls Gap’s best breakfasts head to Livefast Cafe . Sip local wines at Great Western’s historic wineries, Best’s Wines , Seppelt Wines and Norton Estate Wines .

two glasses of beer at Paper Scissors Rock in Halls Gap — Sink a cold one at Paper Scissors Rock.

When it rains, it shines: 12 places that are extraordinary in the rain