Pirates of the Grampians

In today’s modern world of packaged goods and bundled experiences it is pretty difficult to convince a distracted young lad to just go for a walk even in a place as jaw dropping spectacular as the Grampians. Even geocaching with its lure of treasure is often not enough to convince Aiden that the journey is worthwhile. However, armed with a small telescope, sword and a couple of swabbies to order around, he can climb to the top of the tallest mountains in a hunt for pirate gold and booty. The Pinnacle may only be a 2.1 km walk to the top but it is mostly up with short bouts of steep climbing and gains 500 m of elevation from the starting point. Suffer the fools who would take a whinging child too heavy to carry up that route.


To our utter amazement our son, who is occasionally prone to bouts of legs that “don’t work”, decided to be captain and lead us up and then all the way down the mountain. We knew we were on the right trail when he began to find some gold coins around some of our resting places on the way up. Aiden was puzzled that no one else seemed to know about the pirate gold and treasure and often quizzed passers-by if they knew about the gold. One fellow promised to keep and eye out and mark any gold he found with an X. Sure enough, at Bridal Veil Falls along the route there was a large X and the word gold written in the sand. Aiden managed to find several gold coins around there.

After climbing through Silent Street, a narrow alley through the rock, we made it to the top. Gazing out over Halls Gap, Fyans Valley and beyond was treasure enough for most pirates, but we then plundered enough gold wrapped chocolate hidden in a small treasure chest to give a pirate a serious tummy ache. Being the generous pirate he is, Aiden offered to share his booty with several attractive young ladies of various nationalities that were streaming up and down the track. Most of them were melted by his charm faster than chocolate gold in the Australian summer heat. There was also a nicely hidden geocache at the top to add to the morning hunt. Starting early in the morning allowed us to beat most of the heat and tourists and we were back down in time for lunch.

The adventure has created a positive environment for further exploration of the Grampians and we have had little trouble convincing Aiden to go on walks into Silverband Falls, Beehive Falls, Paddy’s Castle and a number of other natural wonders on weekends and during some evenings when he doesn’t have school the next day. We’ve been lucky to be able to explore some of this area with friends we have made and get some deeper insight into the ecology and a few of the 1000+ species of plants there are here. So fair warning if you go walking in the Grampians, you may come across a sorry bunch of pirates on the hunt for adventure.