Hit the Bataluk Cultural Trail and get an insight into 30,000 years of Indigenous Gunaikurnai history and culture. Hear dreamtime stories, see scarred trees, weapons, relics and sacred sites, and learn about the traditional lifestyles of the first inhabitants of the Gippsland region.
Follow the route that takes its name from the Gunaikurnai word for lizard as it winds its way across the Gippsland region. Travel from Won Wron in the west through Mitchell River National Park and on to Cape Conran in the east.
The paths, which have become the Princes and South Gippsland Highways, form the backbone of the original network of Indigenous trails and trading routes that spanned the Gippsland region. Experience this remarkable journey from end to end or design a route that suits your interests and available time.
White Woman's Waterhole
Won Wron State Forest – Bratwoloong country
Visit this site in the Won Wron Forest and hear the legend of the lost white woman. Local folklore has it that in the 1840s a young woman, the sole survivor of a shipwreck off the nearby Ninety Mile Beach, was taken and held captive by the local tribe of Bratwoloong. The story soon developed a life of its own, spawning numerous myths and violent conflicts. The woman, if she ever existed, was never found.
The Lagoon
Sale Common State Game Reserve
From tree bark, birds and honey to seeds and possums, the wetlands were like a supermarket for the Gunaikurnai people. Stroll around Lake Guthridge to the Sale Common boardwalks and discover the numerous plants and wildlife, which provided food, medicines and hardware for the local people.
Den of Nargun
Mitchell River National Park
Visit the Den of Nargun, a sacred site on the Mitchell River. This place is of great cultural significance for Gurnikurnai women, who were thought to take part in initiation ceremonies here. A nargun was believed by the Gurnaikurnai people to be a large creature who lived in the cave behind the waterfall and stories were told around the campfire about how the nargun would abduct children who wandered from camp.
Howitt park
Bairnsdale
Travel to the site where the Gurnaikurnai people would harvest eels, collect fruit, roots and mussels and make bark canoes. Check out the four-metre long scar on the 'canoe tree', believed to be around 170 years old.
The Knob Reserve
Stratford
This bluff high above a bend in the Dooyeedang (Avon River) has been a major campsite and meeting place for the Gunaikurnai people for centuries. Stand on the bluff and see the deep grooves where the axe heads were sharpened on the ancient sandstone grinding stones.
