There’s still time to book an Easter getaway. These last-minute stays are still available, but not for long!
As autumn starts to kick in, the Easter break is our last chance to catch the tail-end of warmer weather before the mercury plummets. And in combination with Anzac Day, this period is the golden ticket to leave-hacking your way to a longer break. So, it makes sense that many of us are setting our OOO and heading to the great outdoors for the holidays: camping, hiking, and making the most of the pleasant temperature.
Parkbooker is a booking platform that helps travellers find, compare and book Holiday Parks around Australia. They’ve analysed the best caravan parks, cabins and campsites to find those still available to book over the Easter break. According to their data, there are still pockets of availability across the country, but spots are disappearing fast.
Haven’t booked anything yet but dreaming of getting away this Easter? Listen up, because there are still great getaways to lock in now.
The Daintree, Qld
Australia is full of UNESCO-listed gems, and you can knock off two of them at once this Easter break. There are still glamping tents, campsites or cabins at Daintree Beach Resort , located between the ancient Daintree Rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef. April is smack-bang in the middle of turtle-hatching season, the perfect reason to head up north and witness one of nature’s miracles.
See the ancient Daintree Rainforest. (Image: TEQ)
Seaside Villages, Tas
Tassie’s big-ticket attractions may be booked out, but the good news is that it’s a perfect opportunity to discover some of the Apple Isle’s hidden gems. For instance, Stanley in the state’s Northwest is home to The Nut – an ancient volcanic formation that towers above the historic seaside town. There is still camping and cabin availability at BIG4 Stanley , right on Tallows Beach.
Stanley is a quaint town in Tasmania’s north that’s home to an ancient volcanic formation. (Image: Getty/THP Creative)
Over on the east coast, BIG 4 St Helens is a quaint coastal town from which to explore the world-famous Bay of Fires, known for its distinctive landscape of granite boulders and bright orange lichen. The area is also home to fantastic hiking and biking trails for an active holiday away.
Rugged orange-hued rocks meet the pristine shores. (Image: Will Wardle Media)
South Ballina, NSW
In the wake of Cyclone Alfred, holiday cancellations swept across Northern NSW and southern Queensland. But the region is open to tourists, and your visit can help recovery operations while you enjoy a restorative break. There is campsite availability at Ballina Beach Nature Resort , the perfect wellness retreat with meditation spaces and walking trails to an outdoor fitness circuit.
Visiting towns affected by Cyclone Alfred that are open for tourists is a great way to support recovery in the region. (Image: Getty/Turnervisual)
Mission Beach, Qld
Combining Reef, Rainforest and Relaxation, Mission Beach in Queensland’s Tropical North is the perfect destination to chase the sun before the mercury begins to plummet. Hideaway Holiday Village , located opposite the beach, still has campsites left. It’s a family-friendly destination and a gateway to the Great Barrier Reef. Dunk Island, a 15-minute ferry ride away, is abundant with places for snorkelling among the coral reefs.
Mission Beach is tucked away on the Cassowary Coast. (Image: Tourism and Events Queensland)
Agnes Water Hinterland, Qld
Agnes Water is a coastal town at the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef. There are still spots available at 1770 Eco Camp , a camp set among 24 acres of tropical bushland with freshwater dams and modern amenities. Unplug from the busyness of daily life and snap up one of the remaining campsites. Spend your Easter break surrounded by Native gums, palms and wildlife – including kangaroos, echidnas, and kookaburras.
Go kayaking across the pristine waters of Agnes Water. (Image: Tourism and Events Queensland)
Elizabeth Whitehead is a writer obsessed with all things culture; doesn't matter if it's pop culture or cultures of the world. She graduated with a degree in History from the University of Sydney (after dropping out from Maths). Her bylines span AFAR, Lonely Planet, ELLE, Harper's BAZAAR and Refinery 29. Her work for Australian Traveller was shortlisted for single article of the year at the Mumbrella Publishing Awards 2024. She is very lucky in thrifting, very unlucky in UNO.
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
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
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.
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.
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?
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).
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.
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 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 .
