When the snow melts in Victoria's North East, the state's highest mountains swap ski lifts for hiking boots, bikes and paddles — and locals will tell you summer is when the High Country really shows off.
On foot, the headliner is the Razorback Walk: a 22km return trek from Diamantina Hut near Mt Hotham along a narrow ridge to the summit of Mt Feathertop, Victoria's second-highest peak at 1922m and often called its most spectacular. Longer on time? The three-day, 37km Falls to Hotham Alpine Crossing links two ski resorts via ridgelines above 2000m, snow gum forest and historic huts, with two campsites spaced 14km apart. Families have options too — Mt Buller's trails include a two-hour Summit Nature Walk and a 'Gnome Roam' scavenger hunt for kids.
Runners get cool air and big views on routes like Mt Buller's 14km Delatite Drop down to Mirimbah, or Mt Hotham's Cobungra Ditch, a 12.5km near-level track beside an 1880s gold-mining water race at over 1500m altitude. Horse riders can follow the cinematic trail of The Man from Snowy River to Craig's Hut on Mt Stirling with McCormack's Mountain Valley Trail Rides — the hut was built as a film set, burned in a 2006 bushfire, and rebuilt in its classic style.
Cycling is arguably the region's strongest suit. Mt Buller is Australia's only IMBA-accredited Ride Centre, with 100km of trails including the 46km Alpine Epic — the country's only trail granted official 'Epic' status, ending in a big descent to Mirimbah. Falls Creek adds another 50km, among them Flowtown, which links with two trails into a 10km gravity ride dropping more than 500m. Smaller bike parks at Bright, Beechworth, Dinner Plain, Mt Beauty and Mansfield cover every ability. Road riders can tick off the 7 Peaks challenge — climbs to Mt Buller, Mt Buffalo, Mt Hotham, Dinner Plain, Falls Creek, Lake Mountain and Mt Baw Baw, whose road averages an 11.4 per cent gradient — or take it easy on traffic-free rail trails like the Murray to Mountains through the gourmet Ovens Valley.
The valleys bring water. The Ovens River at Bright offers flat-water and gentle rapids, with decent odds of spotting a platypus on a Bright Adventure Company paddle; alpine lakes at Falls Creek and Mt Buffalo suit kayaking and stand-up paddleboarding. Mt Buffalo's cliffs frame The Gorge and host abseiling from family-friendly 25m drops to a 300m 'mega abseil'. Adventurous types can picnic — or spend a night — in a porta-ledge suspended off the cliff face, billed as the world's highest cliff camping experience.
If your idea of an Australian summer involves alpine air rather than beach sand, this corner of Victoria packs an entire adventure holiday into one compact region, roughly three hours from Melbourne by car.
