Yarram Club Hotel in the main street

Yarram (including Balook and Woodside)
Central service township in West Gippsland
Yarram is located 220 km south-east of Melbourne via the South Gippsland Highway and 21 metres above sea level. Located in the shire of Alberton, it is notable less for its own sights than for its proximity to the surf of Ninety Mile Beach (14 km), the Tarra-Bulga National Park, the Strzelecki Ranges and Wilsons Promontory.

Yarram Yarram, as it was known until 1924, found its origins in an Aboriginal phrase thought to mean 'plenty of water' or 'waterfalls'.

In 1841 the site, originally a low-lying swamp, was chosen by a Scottish clan leader, Aeneas Ronaldson MacDonnell, who, with his fellow Scots, attempted to set up a feudal-style court. However, the experiment folded and he subsequently moved to New Zealand.

John Carpenter, an early settler, established the town's first industry when he built a flour and saw mill in 1857 on the Tarra River. Duke Street is named after another prominent early citizen, Thomas Duke, who owned the Yarram Hotel and built the Bank of Australia.

The town of Yarram was gazetted in 1893. The town's growth related to the preference of local farmers for Yarram as a marketplace, rather than the more distant Port Albert.

Things to see:  

Historic Buildings
Some of the older buildings in town include the Court House, the Regent Theatre (1928), the old hotel, built in 1912 and more recently renovated as a government office, and "Hawthorn Bank" on Pound Road, an early and intact wattle-and-daub cottage, although the original shingled roof has been replaced with iron.

Around the Town
3 km east of Yarram is a scenic golf course which is home to a large herd of wild kangaroos and large numbers of the plants known as 'black boys'. It is said that these unusual plants only grow 30 cm each century.

Horse riding, boating and bushwalking can all be enjoyed in the vicinity and the Tarra festival is held each Easter. Promway Horse-Drawn Wagons hire out well-equipped gypsy-style wagons for a more leisurely exploration of the area (03 5182 6119). Swimming and surf fishing are popular at McLoughlin's Beach, located on a sheltered inlet, 18 km south.

Omega Radio Navigation Facility
26 km north-east along the South Gippsland Highway, past Woodside, is a 432-metre tower and helix building known as the Omega Radio Navigation Facility, one of eight transmitters in a worldwide network, designed to ensure the safe coordination of the world's nautical and aerial traffic. The site now belongs to the Department of Defence and is not open to the public.

Won Wron State Forest
20 km north-east, at the junction of Napier Road and Loves Road, in the Won Wron State Forest, is a recreational reserve called White Woman's Waterhole, probably named after a woman who allegedly disappeared after the wreck of a ship on 90 Mile Beach around 1854. Legend has it that she was found by some Aborigines who used the waterhole and was rescued, after a skirmish, by a search party, when a message she carved on a nearby tree was noticed by a stockman. In the Depression the Forestry Commission operated charcoal kilns nearby. Near the toilet block at the eastern end of the picnic area there is the start of a signposted 2-km walking track through the forest.

Tarra-Bulga National Park
To the north-west of Yarram lies the Tarra-Bulga National Park, probably the main attraction in the area. 'Bulga' is an Aboriginal word, meaning 'high place' or 'mountain' and the word 'Tarra' comes from Strzelecki's Aboriginal guide, Charlie Tarra. This relatively small remnant of the original Gippsland forest provides some insight into the type of vegetation which once covered the Strzelecki Ranges, much of which was cleared in the last thirty years of the nineteenth century. The more rugged and elevated land and the steeper slopes in the eastern sections created difficulties which drove many second-generation farmers off their parents' lands, particularly during World War I.

The Bulga National Park was created when fifty acres was set aside in 1903 at the request of the Alberton shire - later extended to eighty hectares. A separate 750 acres was reserved in the Tarra Valley in 1909 and the intervening land was purchased later, with the Tarra-Valley National Park of 1230 hectares being declared in June, 1986.

1 km east of Balook and 200 metres off the Grand Ridge Road is the Bulga Picnic Area. The Fern Gully Tree Nature Walk (2 km return) commences from this point and crosses Corrigan's Suspension Bridge, which came from Alberton West in 1938. It spans Macks Creek and the fern gully below. A slightly longer walk meanders through the open forest above. For those with disabilities, the Lyrebird Ridge Track (1.2 km return) is suitable for wheelchairs. To the west is the Tarra Valley picnic area, on the Tarra Valley Road, with Cyathea Falls accessible from this point via either the east or west tracks. It is advisable to bring strong shoes and raincoats as rainfall is high. Both picnic areas have shelters, fireplaces, toilets and tables.

The park is noted for its ferns (33 species), some growing as high as ten metres. The main tree types are mountain ash, sassafras, myrtle beech, silver wattle and blackwood, creating a canopy that reaches as high as 60 metres, sometimes filtering out as much as 95 per cent of the light. There are also mosses and fungi, 130 varieties of birds, such as the lyrebird, the pilot bird and olive whistlers, seven species of bats, lizards, snakes, frogs, insects and native mammals, including kangaroos, wallabies, echidnas, platypuses, wombats, bandicoots, possums and native rats, though some of these are nocturnal.

The Grand Ridge Road, Yarram to Balook Road, Tarra Valley Road and the Blackwarry Scenic Road all cut through the park. Near Balook is the turn-off for Mount Tassie (730 metres), on the highest section of the Strzeleckis, which provides panoramic views of the area. Other vantage points include the Balook Road and the Blackwarry Fire Tower.

Balook
A visitor's centre at the township of Balook contains a theatrette and a museum and information leaflets on the walking tracks. Hal Porter taught at the local school in 1938 and wrote of these experiences in the second part of his autobiography, The Paper Chase (1966).

Blackwarry
The township of Blackwarry is 5 km east of the Bulga Park. A Danish settler, Hans Kjergaard, selected land in the area in the 1880s, introducing a profusion of blackberries and, later, about sixty goats to control the bramble. Gold was discovered the following decade but in quantities too minute to attract major attention. A post office and public hall were constructed before 1910 but Blackwarry became a ghost town as the farmers gradually moved away.

	Motels
	Commercial Motel/Hotel 238 Commercial Rd P.O. Box 20 Yarram VIC 3971 Telephone: (03) 5182 5419 Rating: **
	Ship Inn Motel South Gippsland Hwy P.O. Box 152 Yarram VIC 3971 Telephone: (03) 5182 5588 Rating: ***
	Tarra Motel 387 Commercial Rd Yarram VIC 3971 Telephone: (03) 5182 5444 Rating: ****
	Hotels
	Yarram Club Hotel 287 Commercial Rd Yarram VIC 3971 Telephone: (03) 5182 5027 Rating: *
	Caravan Parks
	Best Friend Holiday Retreat Tarra Valley Rd, Tarra Valley via Yarram VIC 3971 Telephone: (03) 5186 1216 Rating: ***
	Tarra Valley Caravan Park Tarra Valley Rd, Tarra Valley via Yarram VIC 3971 Telephone: (03) 5186 1283 Rating: ***
	Windmill Caravan Park Commercial Rd P.O. Box 129 Yarram VIC 3971 Telephone: (03) 5182 5570 Rating: ***
	Yarram Rosebank Tourist Park 375 Commercial Rd Yarram VIC 3971 Telephone: (03) 5182 5063 Rating: ***
	Restaurants
	Commercial Motel/Hotel 238 Commercial Rd P.O. Box 20 Yarram VIC 3971 Telephone: (03) 5182 5419
	Lucky Dragon Chinese Restaurant Commercial Rd Yarram VIC 3971 Telephone: (03) 5182 6016
	Ship Inn Motel South Gippsland Hwy P.O. Box 152 Yarram VIC 3971 Telephone: (03) 5182 5588
	Tarra Motel 387 Commercial Rd Yarram VIC 3971 Telephone: (03) 5182 5444
	Yarram Club Hotel 287 Commercial Rd Yarram VIC 3971 Telephone: (03) 5182 5027