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Budj Bim Full Day Tour: Explore World Heritage Sites through Gunditjmara Eyes
4.9
86 Ratings
Heywood
Immerse yourself in the vibrant Indigenous culture and explore the World Heritage listed sites of Budj Bim through the eyes of the Gunditjmara people. Discover the ancient aquaculture networks, stone traps, and natural wonders on this full-day tour.
Immerse yourself in the vibrant Indigenous culture and explore the World Heritage listed sites of Budj Bim through the eyes of the Gunditjmara people. Discover the ancient aquaculture networks, stone traps, and natural wonders on this full-day tour.
Duration:
8 hours
Cancellation:
24 hours
Highlights
- Heywood - Meet at the Budj Bim Cultural Landscape Tourism offices in Heywood and board your bus and travel around 20 mins to the next location.
- C176 - Your Gunditjmara cultural guide will show you a historic stone house used by Gunditjmara men, a stone wall art installation, as well as an area of lava flow featuring two weirs and a dam…
- Heywood - Meet at the Budj Bim Cultural Landscape Tourism offices in Heywood and board your bus and travel around 20 mins to the next location.
- C176 - Your Gunditjmara cultural guide will show you a historic stone house used by Gunditjmara men, a stone wall art installation, as well as an area of lava flow featuring two weirs and a dam associated with trapping and holding kooyang. Travel around 20 mins to the next location.
- Lake Gorrie - See the Bessiebelle Sheepwash, the best surviving example of a traditional pastoral sheep wash in Victoria. Gunditjmara workers constructed some of the dry stone walls on the property in years past.
- Budj Bim National Park - See the Budj Bim volcanic crater now Lake Surprise, as you take a guided bush walk and step inside the lava tunnels and a cave. Travel around 20 mins to the Tae Rak Aquaculture Centre for a light lunch.
- Lake Condah - Lunch at the Tae Rak Aquaculture Centre cafe.
- Lake Condah - Take an informative guided walk with your Gunditjmara cultural guide and explore the Tae Rak Aquaculture Centre, Lake Codah and ancient eel traps. This location includes stunning wetland views and extensive wildlife including native birdlife. Travel around 20 mins to the next location.
What's Included
- Snacks provided
- Lunch included
- Air-conditioned transportation
- Snacks provided
- Lunch included
- Air-conditioned transportation
What's Not Included
- Gratuities
- Gratuities
Additional Information
Discover a vibrant Indigenous culture and the region’s heritage, as you are introduced to the World Heritage listed sites through Gunditjmara eyes.See how the Budj Bim lava flows enabled the Gunditjmara to develop one of the largest and oldest aquaculture networks in the world. Composed of channels, dams and weirs, they are used to contain floodwaters…
Discover a vibrant Indigenous culture and the region’s heritage, as you are introduced to the World Heritage listed sites through Gunditjmara eyes.See how the Budj Bim lava flows enabled the Gunditjmara to develop one of the largest and oldest aquaculture networks in the world. Composed of channels, dams and weirs, they are used to contain floodwaters and create basins to trap, store and harvest the kooyang eel. Tours along raised boardwalks designed to preserve the precious natural environment will showcase historical stone kooyang traps and stone channels, stone house sites and eel smoking trees and other natural phenomena.
- There is travel time of around 20 mins between each location visited on this tour. The total time on tour is 8 hours.
Location
4/48 Edgar St
Edgar Street
Please meet at the Budj Bim Cultural Landscape Tourism office 15 mins before the start of your tour. We cannot wait if you are late.
Cancellation Policy
For a full refund, cancel at least 24 hours before the scheduled departure time.
For a full refund, cancel at least 24 hours before the scheduled departure time.
Customer Ratings
4.9
(86 Ratings)
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612kyliet
Jul 16, 2025
Great guide, fabulous food and excellent experience. Highly recommend. - Our guide was very knowledgeable and passionate about the traditions and customs of his people. The lunch included in our package was a variety of indigenous inspired cuisine. It was very delicious.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Felicityc540
Jul 4, 2025
Truth Telling at its best- powerful and educative - Provided understanding and insight into how innovative and resilient the Gundjitmara were to engineer the eeltraps long before the pyramids were built. Also great to get a sense of the housing and community of 6600 years ago.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
M921ndanns
Apr 29, 2025
Australia's cultural heart - Why do we go overseas and place such importance on the history of other countries without exploring our own? This site is so rich in history and of significant cultural importance. Our Cultural Officer was a young Gunditjmara man who was very adept at finding a balance in blending of some hard facts along with sharing the richness and beauty of the country. The lunch was superb. The lunchtime discussions amongst our group showed we were all immersed in the experience. The programme of the full day tour was well-paced and allowed time to absorb all the information being shared so generously with us. The history is staggering, hard to get your head around. I am still processing everything. Amazing, thank you for the richness of the experience.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Grahamm662
Mar 29, 2025
Indigenous Tourism At Its Best - The organisation of the tour from booking and confirmation all the way through to the quality of the tour itself, and through to the food on offer and provided as part of the tour was absolutely first class. The pity was that the lake was at its lowest level for many years and the streams and wetlands were all dried up, which prevented us seeing the eel traps as they would normally be. However, the tours (I did both the Budj Bim morning tour and the Tae Rak afternoon tour, with lunch in between) were very good indeed. Reuben, the morning guide, was remarkably passionate and knowledgable, and his description of the fate of the Gunditjmara people after European incursion from 1842 was a story that non-Indigenous Australians should hear. The whole Budj Bim enterprise is very impressive, and demonstrates the very best of Indigenous tourism.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
C5584ljleighr
Mar 15, 2025
Informative & interesting - We enjoyed the day very much. Our guide for the morning was Jayden & he was very informative. We learnt a lot about the aboriginal culture. When had lunch in the cafe which was delicious (Eel arancini balls with salad) then enjoyed the afternoon with Brayden. We learnt all about the Eels & how they caught them. We then went to see “fish traps” & a smoking tree. Brayden was a great guide with lots of information. Definitely well worth doing the full day. We started with just the half day then upgraded.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
David_n
Mar 2, 2025
Beware of the start! - Our booking directed us to an incorrect starting point, a store-front in Macarthur, 25k from Lake Condah!!!
The rest of the day was informative & interesting
Review provided by Viator
X3582nalizd
Feb 26, 2025
Knowledge shared and exceptional guided tour - Our day tour was informative, full of excellent knowledge shared in subtle and informed ways. The layers of First Nations Country and peoples were much more than we would have learned without the tour.
Food was excellent too, as were the birds, walks and incredible Country.
thanks so much
L & J
Review provided by Tripadvisor
655randiw
Feb 11, 2025
Thank You – Unforgettable Experience at Budj Bim - Dear Budj Bim Team,
I wanted to extend my heartfelt thanks for the incredible experience of visiting Budj Bim. Your generosity in sharing your stories, culture, and deep connection to Country made this an unforgettable journey—one that has left a lasting impact on me and my family.
Budj Bim’s 30,000-year history offers an extraordinary perspective—not just on the resilience and ingenuity of the Gunditjmara people but also on the deep human connection to this land that predates colonisation by tens of thousands of years. Standing in that landscape, hearing about aquaculture systems older than the Egyptian pyramids, I was struck by how much of Australia’s deeper history remains unseen, unacknowledged, or overshadowed by colonial narratives.
I had the privilege of experiencing this with my parents, and they too were deeply moved. My 68-year-old father said afterwards that if there had been a three-day tour, he would have done it without hesitation. That speaks to the power of what you are sharing—the knowledge, the history, and the profound sense of place that you bring to life through your storytelling.
Thank you again for this experience. We are forever moved.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
U6462stjuliea
Feb 4, 2025
Interesting trip back in time. - Outstanding cultural tour. Our guide, Jaydyn, was very knowledgeable, friendly and patient. The areas visited were beautiful and better than described. Lunch was delicious and plentiful. Highly recommended.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Cans4kd
Jul 23, 2025
Very enjoyable and entertaining. Plan for two days at least - We very much enjoyed our tour and learned many new things.
A few things I’d like to see improved. The bathrooms along the tour were locked, the tour guide really needs to carry the key.
We were also told to leave the precinct as soon as the tour finished which was a shame as we hadn’t even had time to look at the lake. Suggest getting to the tour early to look around.
The food was top class, however we were presented with a platter to share with another guest who we didn’t know, it’s not really a great thing to share food with a stranger.
The photos on web site show many things we did not see so felt somewhat disappointed by this, though as I said we really enjoyed what we did see.
I would suggest other visitors to plan a second day to return to all the sights to have a longer more thorough look around after the tour.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
