Mornings shine gold and afternoons stretch long when drifting along the Murray River by houseboat.
Cruising the Murray is one of the best ways to discover this stunning region. (Image: Krista Eppelstun)
The first thing you notice on the Murray is the quiet. Not silence, exactly, but a softness that settles over everything. On our first afternoon onboard Iconic, the houseboat moved so slowly it felt like the river was carrying us rather than the other way around.
From the top deck, the water glimmered dull gold. A few of us slipped straight in, the cold hitting that perfect spot between refreshing and shocking. From above, it must have looked like we were drifting in the middle of nowhere – tiny shapes in a wide, green ribbon of water.
So much of life on the Murray happens in these small, unhurried pockets of time. From the moment we set off from the banks of Victoria’s Mildura for our week-long sailing, we felt ourselves succumb to its gentle pace. There were mornings when I’d step outside with my camera and the whole river would be still; the gum trees reflected with almost impossible precision.
The water glimmered gold as the sunshine flowed in. (Image: Krista Eppelstun)
Gum trees are reflected in the calm river as the mighty Murray unfurls in front of you. (Image: Krista Eppelstun)
Embrace slow living. (Image: Krista Eppelstun)
Enjoy a cold martini on deck. (Image: Krista Eppelstun)
There were afternoons where someone would cast a line from the bow, half hoping for a bite, half enjoying the excuse to sit in the sun without needing to be anywhere. And there were moments that felt almost indulgent in their simplicity, like resting a cold martini on the deck rail while the heat eased over the water.
Inside the boat, the pace slowed even further. Sunlight slanted through the windows. Towels hung from the rails. People wandered between rooms in swimmers and bare feet. There was no rush to do anything. Every day arranged itself around the weather, the water and whatever felt good in the moment. It was the kind of travel where you stop noticing the time because it stops mattering.
The All Seasons fleet journeys through the Murray. (Image: Krista Eppelstun)
The All Seasons fleet journeys through the Murray. (Image: Krista Eppelstun)
What I loved most was how the landscape shaped the days without demanding anything from us. Long, quiet bends. Birds skimming low. Riverbanks that shifted from deep green to red earth with no announcement. Even when we weren’t moving, the scenery was. The river has a personality that reveals itself slowly. You start to tune into it the way you tune into a person you’re travelling with.
Looking back, the images I captured feel like a true reflection of the experience: floating in warm light, swimming in the middle of the river, watching the day rearrange itself through the boat’s windows. Nothing rushed. Nothing forced. Just the simple pleasure of inhabiting a place at a pace that makes sense for it. That’s the quiet magic of the Murray.
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Enjoy the river at your leisure. (Image: Krista Eppelstun)
Weave through the scenic river red gum landscape. (Image: Krista Eppelstun)
Enjoy framed visions of green and gold from floor-to-ceiling windows aboard Iconic. (Image: Krista Eppelstun)
Life onboard the Iconic houseboat is a tranquil way to travel along the Murray River. (Image: Krista Eppelstun)
The Murray is a bird-lover's paradise. (Image: Krista Eppelstun)
Take rest stops to swim and kayak. (Image: Krista Eppelstun)
Bomb off the boat in a happy explosion of sound and water. (Image: Krista Eppelstun)
Contemplate the many moods of the river. (Image: Krista Eppelstun)
A traveller’s checklist
Getting there
Mildura sits on the Murray River in north-west Victoria. It is a two-hour flight from Melbourne/Naarm or Adelaide/Tarntanya, or around six hours by car from Melbourne. Mildura Marina is close to supermarkets and bottle shops, making it easy to stock up before departure.
Playing there
A houseboat holiday makes for a memorable getaway. (Image: Krista Eppelstun)
We travelled with All Seasons Houseboats , one of the most established operators on the Murray. Its fleet ranges from family-friendly vessels to luxury boats with generous living spaces, outdoor decks and rooftop areas. Our boat, Iconic , included multiple bedrooms, a kitchen, a spa on the bottom deck and plenty of room for long, slow days on the water.
What to expect
Life on the river unfolds at its own pace. Expect quiet bends lined with gums, warm swims off the back deck, easy fishing, long lunches, late-afternoon light and consistently changing scenery. No boating licence is required and the staff provide a thorough on-water lesson before you set off.
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 .
