Walking Victoria: From plateaus to plates

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This was published 9 years ago

Walking Victoria: From plateaus to plates

A cabin by the trailhead at Lake Cobbler.

A cabin by the trailhead at Lake Cobbler.Credit: Andrew Bain

There's nothing like fresh alpine air to work up an appetite as Andrew Bain discovers.

Victoria's High Country is a place of high mountains and high cuisine. Its peaks and plateaus are covered in alpine expanses and its valleys are smothered in wineries and gastronomic pleasures.

It is an easy place to hike by day and indulge by night, a combination that has inspired a pair of new hiking tours where food is as important as footsteps.

A lunch stop at Mount Cobbler.

A lunch stop at Mount Cobbler.Credit: Andrew Bain

The centrepieces of Hedonistic Hiking's new trips are Mount Buffalo and Mount Cobbler, two peaks often overlooked by visitors and yet two of the more striking mountains in the region.

Mount Cobbler rises in a series of rock waves, with the highest waterfall in the state leaping down one of its slopes.

Mount Buffalo sits apart from the main ranges, with a profile that its European discoverers, Hamilton Hume and William Hovell, deemed bovine.

Trees on top of Mount Buffalo.

Trees on top of Mount Buffalo.Credit: Andrew Bain

"They thought it looked like a buffalo lying on its side with its horn," says my guide, Mick Parsons.

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"I've looked at it from every angle and I can't see it. I think they were delirious," he says.

I am walking with Mick across the high plateau of Mount Buffalo, skirting alpine clearings and funnelling through shallow gullies.

The clearings are speckled with alpine wildflowers, and wombat scat litters the tracks. Ravens call from atop the granite tors - mounds of rock rising from the plateau - that are so distinctive of this mountain.

Although we are walking on tracks, it feels almost as though we are drifting across the plateau, wending from snow clearing to snow clearing like a walking game of connect the dots.

Mount Buffalo is a mountain like no other in the High Country.

Forming separately to, and separated from, the ranges around it, it has species of trees found nowhere else in the world, giving it a Lost World-like quality.

This morning we will walk for 10 kilometres and see nobody. "The average altitude of the plateau is around 1500 metres, so the temperature drops around 10 degrees from the valley," Mick says. "It's a lovely cool place in summer, but it's so under-visited, it's often our own private little mountain."

After three hours on foot, we come to the grandest tor of all: the Cathedral, a tower of granite that looks something like an Easter Island moai smashed into a pyramid.

It is one of Mount Buffalo's most striking natural features, and there is an added sense of drama this morning, with cloud drawing and closing over its towers of rock.

A few metres ahead there is a final short climb to the road, where a van awaits us.

The walking is done for this day; the eating can begin. And the culinary experiences on Hedonistic Hiking's trips come in as many flavours as the food.

One evening there is an outdoor sunset dinner on white linen by the Horn, the highest point on Mount Buffalo, looking out over receding waves of mountains. Another day the gastronomy intersects with the hiking as we stroll through vineyards from Mayford Wines to the cellar door at Ringer Reef in the company of the latter's owner and winemaker, Bruce Holm.

The pinnacle of the dining experience is at Simone's of Bright. Set inside a former bank, and operating for almost three decades, Simone's is a Bright institution, bringing the flavours of Italy to a region heavily settled by Italians.

With owner Patrizia Simone stepping back from the kitchen in recent years, son Anthony is now head chef, and this night he presents an eight-course degustation menu paired with Italian and local wines.

Almost all the ingredients, from the fried zucchini flowers to the house-cured meats to the pork fillet with pickled Myrtleford limes, are sourced from within about 60 kilometres of Bright, and yet it is Italy divided into eight dishes.

The second of the new trips is framed around Mount Cobbler. Forming the backdrop to Craig's Hut, the famous High Country hut built as a film set for The Man from Snowy River, it is a mountain familiar even to many who have never been here.

It is our plan to climb to the summit of Mount Cobbler, burning calories through the morning and afternoon and racking them back up over lunch and dinner.

The walk begins at Lake Cobbler, pooled high on the mountain's slopes. After a few minutes, the trail crosses a small creek with ambition - about 15 minutes downstream, this trickle becomes Dandongadale Falls, Victoria's highest waterfall, with a drop of 255 metres.

The hike to the summit ascends about 500 metres, making it a more challenging walk than Mount Buffalo's plateau, but I am balancing the effort with the thought of the extra lunch I will eat.

The climb is continuous, rising from the banks of the creek to ascend through bush still regenerating from a fire years ago. In contrast to the fire scenes, snow sifts across the mountain, chilling the air and hopefully the wine I suspect is in Mick's backpack.

When we rise to the main ridgeline, there is a brief pocket of visibility - the summit is close - but as we continue, more snow falls, settling now on the bush, the track and our shoulders. We retreat to the more welcoming prospect of lunch in a protected clearing.

As Mick's partner, Jackie, empties her backpack of food, it is like watching a Tupperware-dispensing Tardis. There is fruit, biscuits, cheese, slow-roasted tomatoes, locally cured salamis and homemade chutney and herb bread. There is a salad of mushrooms, coriander, sherry vinegar and Mount Buffalo olive oil, and another of brown rice, broccoli, Alpine Valley walnuts and parsley. A floral tablecloth is laid out in the alpine grasses and, as Mick lights a warming fire, there is indeed a bottle of Dal Zotto Sangiovese Cabernet. And that is only a foretaste of dinner.

One evening of the two-night stay around Mount Cobbler, dinner is in the trattoria at Dal Zotto Wines, the vineyard that pioneered prosecco production in Australia in 2004. On the other night, the evening meal is at Casa Luna Gourmet Accommodation, where I am staying.

At this Italian-style hideaway on land above and below vineyards near Myrrhee, food is paramount. Rooms are wrapped around a courtyard with a pizza oven, the dining room is lined with a library of cookbooks and the kitchen is under the watch of chef and owner Gwenda Canty.

In the twilight and well into the night, another Italian feast ensues.

The food and wine seem to come from a Horn of Plenty, as trout rillettes, asparagus wrapped in pancetta, lamb finished with egg and parmesan and a rhubarb and orange panna cotta fill the table.

Nearing midnight, I step out into the cool mountain air.

It is little more than 10 steps from the dining room to my bed, but I have probably walked far enough as it is.

The writer travelled courtesy of Hedonistic Hiking and Tourism North East.

TRIP NOTES

GETTING THERE

The nearest airport to the region is Albury in NSW. Virgin Australia flies to Albury from Sydney; Rex flies from Melbourne. virginaustralia.com; rex.com.au.

HIKING THERE

Hedonistic Hiking's weekend Highlights of Mount Buffalo National Park trip costs $795 and includes hiking on the mountain plus a walk through Ovens Valley vineyards. Its weekend Victorian Alps and Vineyards trip costs $675 and includes hikes on Mount Cobbler and in the King Valley. See hedonistichiking.com.au.

MORE INFORMATION

visitvictoria.com

HIGH COUNTRY GOURMET ADVENTURES

RIDE A HORSE TO LUNCH

Take a three-hour or full-day trail ride with Bogong Horseback Adventures and horsemen Clay and Lin Baird will also cook up a lunch feast using produce from their own kitchen garden, as well as local artisan ingredients. See bogonghorse.com.au.

HIGH COUNTRY BREWERY TRAIL

Grab this booklet produced by the region's four craft breweries, outlining their favourite mountain-bike rides, concluding with a beer at each of the breweries.

PACKING PROSECCO

At Forge's Farm, learn the bush art of packing a horse, albeit with prosecco, riding to the shady banks of the King River for a feed of local Milawa cheese and Dal Zotto prosecco. See forgesfarm.com.

PEDAL TO PRODUCE

A series of trail maps guiding cyclists between cafes, wineries and farm-gate producers, usually on bike trails or quiet roads. Download maps at northeastvalleys.com.au.

PICNIC WALK TO WALLACES HUT

Hike to one of the High Country's most evocative huts from Falls Creek, carrying in a picnic lunch made up by Milch Cafe (phone 03 5758 3407) at Falls Creek.

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