Paradise lost: Tiny Victorian town wakes to find beloved sacred site and tourist hotspot vandalised

With a population of just over 200, everyone knows everyone in Cheshunt, Victoria.

But no one seems to know who defaced a sacred site at nearby Paradise Falls in the Alpine National Park this weekend.

Almost two metres tall and several metres wide, the graffiti scrawled across the pristine rock wall appears to be of one or more artists' signatures or 'tags'.

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"It's shocking. It's so shocking [...] shock is where I think most of the community is today," a local who asked not to be named told 9news.com.au.

"Because when it started circulating last night, I think most people were really hoping that it was going to be photoshopped, that it was a prank."

Have you got a story? Contact reporter Maddison Leach at mleach@nine.com.au

Located about three-and-a-half hours from Melbourne, Paradise Falls is a popular tourist attraction for its natural beauty.

The falls cascade from a conglomerate rock formation and the area is considered a sacred women's place by the Bangerang People.

Bangerang Country encompasses parts of north-east Victoria and Southern Riverina Murray region of New South Wales and at least ten clan groups form the Bangerang Nation.

A Facebook page titled 'Always Was, Always Will Be, Bpangerang Country' shared a photo of the graffiti on Sunday, calling it "thoughtless" and "disrespectful".

9news has reached out to the Bangerang Cultural Centre in Shepparton, Victoria for comment.

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The Cheshunt local 9news spoke to believes the culprits likely waited for the cover of darkness to graffiti the rock wall "when no one else was around".

Paradise Falls is a tourist hotspot and is typically packed with visitors on weekends, and the graffiti seemed to appear overnight between Saturday and Sunday.

"I doubt that it was something that was done in daylight, I think it would have been done at dusk or dawn, or with some lights down there," she said.

The resident also suggested that the vandalism may have been planned, as it likely would have taken multiple cans of paint to cover such a large section of rock wall.

"You don't just have [...] 20 cans of spray paint in your backpack to randomly decide to do something," she claimed.

"This has been planned."

She and other locals just hope that the paint can be removed without damaging the rock underneath, which has been there for thousands of years.

A Parks Victoria spokesperson told 9news, "Parks Victoria are aware of the incident at Paradise Falls and we have referred the matter to the authorities."

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