Forty-seven kilometres, over 1,650 metres of climbing, and an overnight stop on a mountainside — the Halls Gap to Bugiga section of the Grampians Peaks Trail is not a casual weekend stroll, and Parks Victoria’s own “expert” grading isn’t there to scare off beginners for fun. This is the trail’s showcase opening stretch, taking in some of the most photographed terrain in the Grampians (Gariwerd) National Park, and it demands real multi-day hiking fitness, proper gear, and a booked campsite before you take a single step.

Quick stats

  • Distance: 47.29 km
  • Elevation gain: 1,658 m
  • Time: 880 minutes (roughly 14-15 hours of walking)
  • Grade: Expert
  • Route type: Point-to-point
  • Location: Grampians (Gariwerd) National Park, Halls Gap, Victoria

What the track is actually like

This section is the northern gateway to the full 13-day Grampians Peaks Trail, and it front-loads a huge amount of the trail’s signature scenery into a single multi-day stretch. Starting from Halls Gap, the route climbs almost immediately into the Wonderland Range, a jumble of sandstone outcrops, boulder fields and lookouts that has been one of the Grampians’ most popular day-walking areas for decades — except here you’re moving through it with a full overnight pack, which changes the calculus on every scramble and rock step.

The standout feature through this stretch is the Grand Canyon and Silent Street sections, narrow sandstone corridors squeezed between towering rock walls that you walk through rather than around. It’s genuinely dramatic terrain — cool, shaded, and disorienting in a good way — before the trail opens back out and climbs toward the Pinnacle, one of the most recognisable lookouts in the park with sweeping views back over Halls Gap and the Fyans Valley. From there the trail continues south along the ridgeline of the Serra Range, a longer and more exposed stretch where the 1,658 m of total elevation gain really starts to add up, before dropping into Bugiga Hiker Camp for the overnight stop on the approach to Mount Rosea.

Don’t underestimate this one because the distance looks achievable on paper. The combination of technical rock scrambling early on, sustained ridgeline climbing through the Serras, and doing all of it with overnight gear on your back is exactly why Parks Victoria grades it expert. Add in the Grampians’ habit of throwing sudden weather changes at exposed ridgelines, and this is a section that punishes hikers who treat it like a long day walk rather than a genuine multi-day wilderness trek.

Most hikers split the 47.29 km and 880 minutes of official walking time across two days, camping overnight at Bugiga rather than pushing straight through. That means the first day usually absorbs the Wonderland Range, Grand Canyon, Silent Street and the Pinnacle — the most technical and visually dense stretch of the whole section — while the second day takes on the longer Serra Range ridge walk down to camp. Splitting it this way isn’t just about pacing; it also means you’re not descending unfamiliar rock scrambles in fading light, which on sandstone terrain like this is a genuinely bad idea. The trail surface itself shifts constantly: expect hard-packed dirt on the approaches, exposed rock slabs and boulder-hopping through the canyon sections, and narrow, eroded singletrack along parts of the ridge where a loaded pack changes your balance more than you’d expect.

What makes this stretch stand out even within a 13-day trail built almost entirely from highlight terrain is the sheer density of landmarks packed into one section. Walkers doing the full Grampians Peaks Trail often single out Halls Gap to Bugiga as the section they remember most vividly, precisely because it front-loads so much of the park’s most dramatic sandstone scenery before the trail settles into longer, quieter stretches further south toward Dunkeld. That’s worth knowing if your time is limited and you’re deciding which section of the full trail to prioritise — but it also means you’re tackling some of the hardest terrain on the entire route right out of the gate, without the fitness and pack-carrying rhythm that later sections benefit from.

Permits and bookings

The Grampians Peaks Trail is not a walk-up-and-camp-anywhere track. Overnight hiker camps along the full trail — including Bugiga — operate on a booked, quota-limited system through Parks Victoria’s online booking platform, and this section cannot be legally walked overnight without a confirmed booking for your camp. Spots are limited per night, which is a deliberate measure to protect both the fragile alpine and sandstone environments the trail passes through and the experience for other hikers, so don’t assume a spot will be available if you leave it to the last minute, particularly in spring and autumn when demand is highest.

Because booking platforms, fees and exact quota numbers are the kind of detail that changes without much notice, check current availability, pricing and any permit requirements directly on the Parks Victoria website before you commit to a start date. It’s also worth calling Brambuk, the National Park and Cultural Centre in Halls Gap, if you want a real-time read on trail conditions alongside your booking — they’re the most reliable source for what’s actually open on any given week.

This section of the Grampians has also seen significant bushfire impact in recent years, with large parts of the central, western and south-eastern sections of the park affected during the 2024-25 summer fire season. Some walks and trail sections elsewhere in the park have been closed for repair and recovery works as part of a phased reopening program. Before you lock in a Halls Gap to Bugiga booking, check the Parks Victoria alerts and conditions page for Grampians (Gariwerd) National Park specifically for this section, since post-fire track status can change with little warning even when a booking system still shows availability.

It’s also worth building some slack into your plans around booking dates. Because the trail runs on a hard quota per campsite per night, a fully booked Bugiga camp on your preferred date means your only real options are shifting your start date, choosing a different itinerary split, or waiting for a cancellation to open up. This is a deliberate trade-off Parks Victoria has made to protect the trail’s environment and the solitude of the hiking experience, and it’s one of the clearest differences between walking the Grampians Peaks Trail and doing a casual overnight hike elsewhere in Victoria where camping is more informal. If you’re travelling from interstate or overseas to walk this section, lock in your Bugiga booking well before you book flights or accommodation in Halls Gap, not after.

Wildlife to watch for

The Grampians is one of the richest pockets of biodiversity in Victoria, and this section passes through prime habitat for several species of real conservation concern. Keep an eye out — and keep your distance — for:

  • Brush-tailed Rock-wallaby — vulnerable. The Grampians population is one of the last strongholds for this agile, cliff-dwelling wallaby in Victoria, and the rocky terrain around the Wonderland Range and Serra Range is exactly the habitat it needs.
  • Southern Brown Bandicoot — endangered. A small, secretive ground-forager most active at dawn and dusk, so campers at Bugiga have a better chance of spotting one than day walkers passing through at midday.
  • Wedge-tailed eagle — notable species. Australia’s largest bird of prey is a common and genuinely spectacular sight riding thermals above the Pinnacle and along the exposed Serra Range ridgeline.
  • Heath Rat — endangered. A small native rodent restricted to a handful of heathland pockets in Victoria, the Grampians being one of its last reliable refuges.

The plant life along this stretch is just as significant. The Grampians Thryptomene, a notable species found almost nowhere else, flowers along the sandstone country you’ll pass through, alongside ancient stands of Austral Grass-tree that have shaped this landscape for millennia. Two endangered wildflowers, the Flame Grevillea and the Grampians Triggerplant, are both found in this park and nowhere else on Earth — reason enough to stay strictly on the formed track and resist the urge to step off for a closer look or a photo.

None of this is incidental scenery. The Grampians (Gariwerd) National Park is recognised as one of the richest concentrations of plant species in Victoria, largely because its sandstone ranges create dozens of distinct microclimates and soil types packed close together — which is also exactly why a single bushfire season can hit multiple threatened species at once, and why staying on the formed trail through this section matters more than it might on a less ecologically dense walk. If you’re hiking in spring, budget extra time simply for looking — wildflower displays through the Wonderland Range and Serra Range are a major drawcard in their own right, separate from the rock formations most people come for.

Practical tips

  • Book your Bugiga campsite before you plan anything else. This is a permit-and-quota trail, not a first-come, first-served one — your entire itinerary depends on securing a confirmed overnight spot.
  • Carry more water than you think you need. Sections of the Wonderland Range and Serra Range are exposed sandstone with limited shade, and water availability at hiker camps can vary — confirm current supply at Bugiga before you rely on tank or tap water being available.
  • Pack for sudden weather changes. The Grampians’ exposed ridgelines, especially through the Serra Range, can go from still and warm to windy and cold with very little warning, regardless of the season.
  • Check post-fire trail status immediately before you go. Given the scale of the 2024-25 bushfires in this park, confirm this specific section is open and undamaged via Parks Victoria’s alerts page, not just via the booking platform showing availability.
  • Train for scrambling with a loaded pack, not just distance. The Grand Canyon and Silent Street sections involve real rock scrambling, and 1,658 m of elevation gain with overnight gear on your back is a different proposition to the same climb as a day walk.
  • Start early on the second day. The Serra Range ridgeline offers little shelter, and getting off exposed terrain before afternoon weather builds is a sound habit in this park.

Nearby

See the full Grampians & Western Victoria hikes list for more tracks in the region, or view this walk on the map for the live route.