With a trip to Horsham for run club, we decided it made sense to go visit the Northern end of the Grampians National Park.
Having explored Mount Zero & the Western flank back in March, and more recently Hollow Mountain, The kids couldn’t understand why we were back. What else was there to explore?
A lot kids, a lot.
Our intention on this visit was to go up to the Gulgurn Manja Shelter and view some Aboriginal rock art, and then explore Summerday Valley.
A gentle 15-minute walk will take you up to the shelter.
Gulgurn Manja (pronounced Gulkurn Manya) means ‘hands of young people’.
The rock art at Gulgurn Manja includes bars, emu tracks, and handprints.
All the Grampians’ rock art is unique, but this shelter has children’s hand prints rather than stencils, making it a rare find.
Now we could have just taken the walking track back to the car, but then our adventure would be over and down with.
Tom & I are experienced bushwalkers however so we decided to bush bash it to Summerday Valley.
This meant going off the beaten path. Trusting our instincts, and the direction we traversed through the bush like the traditional landowners would have done hundreds of years ago.
Once we reached Summerday Valley, we watched numerous rock climbers abseil down the rock face called “Wall of fools” and other climbers scale the “back wall”.
From here we followed the track back to the carpark.
Everyone thoroughly enjoyed their exploration.