Barmah National Park walking tracks: What’s the best walk?

The 1.5km Yamyabuc Discovery Trail is the best walk in the Barmah National Park near Echuca, Victoria. This Barmah National Park walking track covers Yorta Yorta Aboriginal culture, scar trees, traditional bush food and Indigenous canoes.

The Barmah National Park in Victoria, when combined with the neighbouring Murray River National Park and Regional Park, is home to the world’s largest forest of river redgum trees. It also partially covers camper favourite Ulupna Island near Tocumwal.

Within the Barmah National Park, near the historic town of Echuca on the Murray River, is a series of lakes. The Indigenous Yorta Yorta people have long recognised these as a vital breeding ground for water birds. But some of the smaller, pond-sized lakes have gone dry.

Barmah National Park walking tracks

A series of walking tracks head through the forest. Some have educational signposting. The best walk in the Barmah National Park is the 1.5km Yamyabuc Discovery Trail, which dips into the Yorta Yorta Aboriginal culture.

This Barmah National Park walk starts at the Barmah National Park Day Visitor Area, 40km north-east of Echuca. Stops along the way highlight burial grounds, oven mounds and Indigenous middens.

Aboriginal heritage in Barmah National Park

Signs explain how the Yorta Yorta collected seeds from sedge and nardoo. They would then ground them into flour, and cook them on hot ashes. Tubers such as yam daisy and nardoo would be collected and roasted. Weavers turned fibres from stems of hollow sedge into mats and baskets. Bulbs were beaten then turned into string for making bags and fishing nets. Reeds were used as a breathing device to travel underwater – like a snorkel.

Food would be cooked in one giant earth oven, buried under heated stones or clay. Shells found at such oven mounds have been used to provide information on historic flood and drought events. Yorta Yorta input has also been important for managing the forest. Traditional fire management practices have been used. The Yorta Yorta have also helped installing culverts and regulators. The aim is to help restore flood patterns to how they would have been before European settlers started harnessing the Murray for irrigation.

Scar trees near the Murray River

Further along is a large river red gum tree. It’s a ‘scar tree’, from which the bark would have been used to construct a canoe, or ‘matha’. The scar is still visible, and it would be bigger were it not for the 300 years of regrowth since the canoe was made. But the scar tree acts as proof that people were making their way up and down the Murray River long before Europeans arrived in Echuca.

Why stay in Echuca?

Echuca is probably the most attractive of the Murray River towns. It’s the closest Murray River town to Melbourne, and with its night tours, Discovery Centre and paddlesteamer cruises. But the opportunity to learn about traditional Aboriginal culture on the Yamyabuc Discovery Trail makes the Barmah National Park worth a half day excursion from Echuca. The Murray Farm Gate Trail can also be explore on the drive from Echuca to Albury.

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