Rainbow
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Rainbow

Rainbow

Small Wimmera wheat-belt town in remote northwest Victoria, gateway to Wyperfeld National Park.

Rainbow is a small wheat-belt town in Victoria's remote northwest Wimmera region, sitting on the edge of vast golden plains about 365 kilometres from Melbourne. It's a genuine outback town with a strong agricultural character, and a useful gateway to the nearby Wyperfeld National Park.

Wyperfeld is one of Victoria's largest and least-visited protected areas — mallee scrubland, dry lakes, and long walking trails with almost no one on them. The park is particularly good for birdwatching, with mallee fowl, regent parrots, and Major Mitchell's cockatoos among the species regularly sighted. The road to the park entrance passes through typical Wimmera landscape of red dirt and dry saltbush. Lake Hindmarsh, Victoria's largest natural freshwater lake, lies 20 km to the south and is worth a detour in a year with good rainfall. The Turbo Gallery in town showcases local and visiting artists and is a good first stop on arrival.

Guide

Getting There

Rainbow is 365 km northwest of Melbourne, about 3.5 hours by car via the Western Ring Road and then the Henty Highway. The drive passes through Horsham and then into increasingly flat, open Wimmera country.

There is no train service to Rainbow. V/Line coaches connect Rainbow to Melbourne via Horsham, but services are infrequent — check vline.com.au for current timetables. Having a car is strongly recommended for visiting the region, especially for Wyperfeld National Park, where a car is essential.

Rainbow is also a useful base for driving tours of the wider Wimmera-Mallee region, taking in Hopetoun, Ouyen, and the pink lakes near Dimboola to the east.

Guide

Things to Do

Rainbow's main draw is what surrounds it rather than the town itself. Wyperfeld National Park is the centrepiece — a vast and largely empty stretch of mallee scrub and dry lakes that few Victorians know well. The town itself has a small gallery, a couple of historic buildings, and a grain silo art trail that provides a surprisingly engaging hour or two of walking.