Southern Lookout Walking Track (3km)

Camping

For short stays, camp at Melville Caves Camping Area, one kilometre past the main Melville Caves picnic area. Facilities include toilets and wood barbecues. Collect only dead wood from the ground, or better still use a gas stove or barbecue.

Remnants of history

The Jaara Jaara Aboriginal people of the Kooyoora area depended on natural springs and wells for their water as the area lacks permanent streams. Many large, yet shallow rock wells in the upper surfaces of the granite outcrops supplemented the water supply by storing rainwater. Rock shelters and caves were used for shelter from the weather and their sandy floors have preserved many stone artefacts. Other remnants of Aboriginal occupation are scars in the bark of trees. Bark was used to make bark dishes and shields.

The golden days

European settlement of the area began in the 1840s and mining for alluvial gold had begun by the late 1850s. Substantial finds in the late 1860s began a gold rush that lasted for several years. The gold rush in the Kooyoora area followed soon after the discovery of gold in the Wedderburn district. One of the most famous finds of the Kingower goldfields was the 1857 discovery of the “Blanche Barkley” weighing some 49.5kg. Mining excavations are scattered throughout the park, left behind by the retreating miners who moved on to other fields. Kooyoora State Park was extended to 11,646ha in October 2002 to enhance what remains of Victoria’s Box‐Ironbark forests and woodlands.