AFTER a tough few weeks, Pomonal and Halls Gap have reopened their doors to visitors this week after authorities declared the Grampians bushfire contained.<\/p>\n
Local businesses were upbeat when the Advocate visited yesterday morning despite many losing tens of thousands of dollars in lost trade due to road closures.<\/p>\n
In Pomonal, the general store, Barney\u2019s Bistro, Kerri\u2019s Kreations and Pomonal Estate all opened their doors on Wednesday, although trade is still quiet as the tourists slowly trickle back to Halls Gap.<\/p>\n
Pip and Adam Atchison\u2019s Pomonal Estate is open to receive visitors eager to experience the winery\u2019s cellar door, renowned menu, and new villa accommodation.<\/p>\n
Next weekend the Estate hosts an afternoon show from celebrated Hong Kong \/ Canadian multi-instrumentalist Tennyson King, whose joyous indie-folk has made him a favourite on the live circuit.<\/p>\n
Pep Atchison said it was good to see people return.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has been an interesting couple of weeks and and interesting year, literally, but it was amazing yesterday we opened and had 60 people through. It\u2019s less than we\u2019d normally have but people came out to support us,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Kerrie Fry from Kerri\u2019s Kreations was hopeful things would soon return to normal.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just happy to be back to work and a normal life again. It would be good to see some more customers, an income would be great,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Anita Evans from local jam and preserves business Five Duck Farms said she had plenty of stock and just needed the return of customers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe often have people coming out of Halls Gap calling into Pomonal. The last few weeks has been empty, absolutely empty, tumbleweeds down the main street.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got lots of product to sell, we\u2019re making fresh icecream today,\u201d Anita said.<\/p>\n
Popular local venue Barney\u2019s has remained open to feed locals, but owner Col Macaffer said getting vistors back will be a huge boost.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe opened up last night (Wednesday) and we only had about 20 bookings but had about 100 through the door, mostly locals.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want people to come back and give us their support,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Pomonal General Store proprietor Nadya Miller said reopening the roads to tourists will help the whole community.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m ok here but the other businesses really need tourism to keep their doors open,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Mayor Jo Armstrong said reopening the roads to the Grampians is the first step towards recovery.<\/p>\n
\u201cBarney\u2019s, Pomonal Estate, and Pomonal\u2019s other local businesses are indispensable to the life and economy of our community,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve done wonderful work taking care of volunteers, alongside demonstrating their own personal tenacity and passion for this region. Visiting Pomonal and its businesses is the best possible way of celebrating the township\u2019s reopening,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
AFTER a tough few weeks, Pomonal and Halls Gap have reopened their doors to visitors this week after authorities declared the Grampians bushfire contained. Local businesses were upbeat when the Advocate visited yesterday morning despite many losing tens of thousands of dollars in lost trade due to road closures. In Pomonal, the general store, Barney\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3034,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[31],"class_list":["post-3037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/IMG_2531-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdqUu4-MZ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3037"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}