The Pinnacles in the Grampians; a ripper hike with magic scenery
We’re a sucker for amazing views, and don’t mind a good hike. After seeing some of the Grampians from Boroka Lookout, Sarah and I were even more excited to see more of it, and we wanted to head to the Pinnacles, which is one of two major attractions in the Grampians National Park.
There’s a couple of ways to get there, and with Sarah’s bad back, and a 4 and 6 year old boy we had to make an interesting decision. Our walk ended up being a complete success, and the views really are as good as it gets. We found some really good 4WD tracks in the Grampians too, but on foot, this is a ripper hike.
Where is the Pinnacles?
The Pinnacles basically look out over Halls Gap, and you can get there from a couple of places not too far from Halls Gap (or you can walk up from town too!). We could see our stunning camp site at Halls Gap Lakeside Tourist Park from the top too!
How can you walk there?
There’s a heap of ways you can get to the Pinnacles.
You can walk from Wonderland Car Park, which takes you through Silent Street and is touted as the most scenic
You can walk from Halls Gap itself, which is pretty long and not for the faint hearted
You can walk from Sun Dial Car Park, which is supposed to be the easiest, but you miss out on Silent Street.
Walking from Wonderland Car Park
Ultimately, we decided to walk from Wonderland Car Park, which is the same 2.1km walk each way as the Sun Dial Car Park, but its medium to hard grade, instead of the medium grade of Sun Dial.
We chose this primarily because of Silent Street, which is truly stunning. That said, you could actually walk up the other way and then do Silent Street, as its not far from the top.
The walk starts off over a small bridge, and then you are basically walking up until you get to the top, with very few flat places. The walk involves a fair bit of uneven rocks, with a heap of different steps built to make it easy, but quite often there is no formal path.
The markers are adequate, but certainly not nearly as good as some hikes that we’ve seen, but we didn’t have too many occasions where we were wondering which way to go.
Several years ago the staircase from the Canyon was closed, which means to see that part of the walk you have to double back from the bottom, which was a shame, but not the end of the world.
How did our kids go?
I had my doubts about our kids making the entire walk without major assistance, and given how we were feeling by the end of it I was so glad they did so well. We held Cooper’s hand for about 60% of it, but both children walked the entire way with limited complaining.
We were all pretty worn out at the top though, and stopped a number of times coming down; its not an easy hike and you should expect a serious work out.
We sat at the top and had lunch and snacks with the kids, and even took some toy cars for them to play with for a while before heading down, and we gave them the incentive of going to the Halls Gap Ice-cream shop on the way back to camp (and had them choosing flavours whilst we walked), but they did an awesome job.
Take the right gear
We bumped into a family, who was taking his 3 kids up with no hats, no water, no food or anything else, and that’s a fair old risk to take. We’d have struggled badly without water, and you want decent sun protection, and to go as early as possible if its going to be wet.
Take your time
There is a decent chance of injury here, if you aren’t careful. We saw an older German gentleman slip and hurt his leg, arm and ear when he came down twice on rocks. He wasn’t doing anything wrong, but just slipped and fell pretty hard. We asked if he wanted any help, and said he was OK. He sat there for a while, and then must have turned and gone back as we never saw him at the top.
This is not the sort of hike you’d do in Archies Thongs, and we wear them everywhere.
Was it worth doing?
The Grampians are spectacular, and there’s no better way to see them than getting amongst it. We all thought Silent Street was truly incredible, and standing at the lookout of the Pinnacles and looking down and out will leave you speechless.
Other attractions nearby
Venus Baths is a much easier walk, and the kids will love it if they can splash and slide down the rocks. The Boroka Lookout is truly amazing and super easy to get to. Mackenzie Falls are really beautiful and worth doing, and we really enjoyed Venus Baths (much easier), and Beehive Falls.
