Budj Bim Cultural Landscape
Near Macarthur, southwest Victoria, Australia
The Gunditjmara cultural landscape around Budj Bim (Mount Eccles) in southwest Victoria, whose lava flows carry a system of eel aquaculture channels, weirs, and stone structures developed over thousands of years, inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2019 as the first Australian site listed solely for Aboriginal cultural values.
Budj Bim is a living cultural landscape of the Gunditjmara people in southwest Victoria. When the volcano Budj Bim (Mount Eccles) erupted thousands of years ago, its lava flows reshaped the rivers and wetlands, and Gunditjmara people built on that geology an aquaculture system of channels, weirs, and stone dams to farm and harvest kooyang, the short-finned eel, across the Tyrendarra lava flow and the wetlands of Tae Rak (Lake Condah). UNESCO and the Gunditj Mirring Traditional Owners describe the system as among the world's oldest and most extensive aquaculture systems, its engineering and permanent settlements evidence of a highly organized society sustained over thousands of generations. The 2019 World Heritage inscription was the first in Australia grounded solely in Aboriginal cultural values.
The landscape is managed by the Gunditj Mirring Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation together with Parks Victoria, and visits are structured around Gunditjmara leadership: the Tae Rak Aquaculture Centre at Lake Condah is free and open, and the significant cultural places beyond it are accessible only on guided tours with Gunditjmara cultural guides. That structure is the point of the entry: this is a place where the custodians decide what is shared, and the sharing is genuine and substantial.
Visiting
Budj Bim Cultural Landscape Tourism, run by Gunditj Mirring, is the operator. The Tae Rak Aquaculture Centre and café at Lake Condah (Vaughans Road) are free and open; the Tungatt Mirring (Stone Country) half-day tour runs about 4 hours, Wednesday through Sunday, departing 9:30 am from the centre. The half-day tour starts from $159 adult / $119 child (official site, verified October 2026), with full-day and other options listed on site. Book tours in advance; stay with your guide in the cultural areas and ask about photography rules per tour.
Photo: Dhx1, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons ([source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Budj_Bim_%E2%80%90_Mt_Eccles_National_Park,_Victoria,_Australia_01.jpg))
Associated traditions & practices
Visitor stories