June launches Victoria’s ski season. This season usually lasts until the first week of October. Melbourne is the gateway to six places to enjoy the snow.
(You can view more photos here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqEcO3CrLK0)
Lake Mountain is very popular for families for tobogganing and cross-country skiing. You can easily do this as a day trip. Mt Stirling is another spot for cross-country skiing and it is the larger of the two.
The other four ski resorts are Mt Buller, Falls Creek, Mt Hotham and Mt Baw Baw. Mt Baw Baw is good for those who are just starting out on the snow while the other three have well developed ski networks for green run beginners to advanced black runs. Snow boarding continue to grow in popularity on Falls Creek and Mt Hotham.
As it so happens, Victorian school holidays which falls during the last weekend of June and early July is perfect for a winter getaway.
This year, we based ourselves in Bright to catch what we could of the snowfields and explore its surrounds. Bright is a lovely well supplied country town, just 3.5 hours’ drive from Melbourne. Bright has a number of dining options as well as a very large well-provisioned Woolworths supermarket. There is an ample supply of chalets and accommodation in town.
From Bright, Falls Creek is just over an hour’s drive away. This year, because of contactless pre-booking for entry as well as parking, it made for a quick seamless process. I had found in previous years that the bottleneck at the check through point as well as fitting of chains (if required) could add up to half an hour extra to our drive time.
It does rain in June in Bright and the snowfields and it can make for some sleety weather. If you stay on the ski resorts itself, this might not be such an issue, but if you have to drive to and fro, up and down the mountain each day, it can pose a problem. As it turned out, I only skied once that week, but my son and hubby braved it three times. I do find that glasses and ski helmets in sleety weather don’t go that well together. Yes, helmets are compulsory on these Alpine ski slopes. I am glad for that provision because I was tripped up by a snowboard while getting off the chair-lift one year and fell backwards, hitting the back of my head with a great big thwack on the chair on my way down.
Bright has some beautiful walks along the Ovens River as well as the Murray to Mountains Rail-Trail to explore and enjoy. The deciduous trees were in various shades of yellow and wrinkly brown and even green at this time of year.
Damp mosses, lichen, hopping spiders and various fungi can keep nature photographers quite occupied in Bright while the cloud covered hill tops that surround the snug little town make for picturesque views. The Ovens River Canyon Walk still bear vestiges of a gold-mining era with tail-races embedded into the cliff sides.
Mt Buffalo has a number of scenic stops as well as walking tracks that are more accessible during the warmer months. This is a very scenic drive even in wintry weather. It was snowing near the top on the day we drove up there. We didn’t go all the way up to the Horn carpark – we stopped at the Cathedral-Hump Track carpark and did a short fifteen minute walk. I was not prepared for the snowy conditions that day and was not dressed for slushy snow.
We hired our ski gear and snow chains from Porepunkah Ski Hire which gives exceptional family service. They personally fit and demonstrate to you how to fit snow chains to your car.
Bright is surrounded by nature and you can’t get more natural that kangaroos bounding into your resort!
It is possible to find some sufficiently dark corner even in the resort so that you can indulge in a bit of astro photography. My first! Not perfect, but I was pleased with my first efforts.
In the meanwhile, down closer to shore in Melbourne, at historical Princes Pier, fishermen, roller-bladers and photographers congregate. An information sign on location informs us that Princes Pier was “[b]uilt between 1912 and 1915” and that it “was the third major pier constructed at Port Melbourne. Together with the adjacent Station Pier, it served as a major passenger and cargo terminal in the twentieth century until its closure in 1989. Restored and modified to allow safe public access, Princess Pier reopened in 2011.” This pier is on the Victorian Heritage Register.
On a crisp evening, when the sun sets at 5:07 pm in the middle of June and the lowest temperature is 7C and the maximum 16C, it pays to dress warmly to catch those last rays of the sun on a clear blue day to watch the sky change to violet, mauve, pink and yellow as the last rays of the sun dip along the water’s edge. It is eerie, mesmerising and hypnotic gazing along those rows of aged pylons stretching into the distance of what was once a bustling pier. Satellite imagery comparing Princes Pier and Station Pier gives you an indication of just how much of Princes Pier has not been restored. Standing on this pier, you can often see the Spirit of Tasmania in the evening before its departure for Devonport, Tasmania at 7.30 pm.
Now at this time of year when bare tree branches cast long shadows upon the street even at 2 in the afternoon and camelias, cyclamens and orchids add their cheery countenance to our yards, and gum nuts are well formed and comfort foods beckon, there’s nowhere sweeter than home.
Thank you for dropping by, hope to
see you at the next instalment of what Melbourne is like in July.
