Skiing At Mt Buller

Skiing has been on my ‘to do list’ for quite some time and strangely, I was able to tick it off my list in Australia. I had quite the special birthday present which was a weekend in Mt Buller. Mt Buller is about a 3hours drive from Melbourne and one of our closest mountain ranges. We went very early in the season so expected it to be quite busy.

We stopped off in Mansfield to rent our equipment, I probably wouldn’t do that again to avoid the bassle of of carrying it around. A short 30minutes later, we were at the entrance of the resort where we had to make a choice of paying $65 entrance fee plus overnight parking as a we were staying up on thr mountain. You also need to be able to fit snow chains on your car if you are driving up the mountain.
We decided to park at the bottom of the hill, at the entrance to the resort and get the bus up. It is a beautiful drive up the mountain, just when you think you can’t go any higher, you keep climbing and the road and trees around you start to appear white.

Tip**A snow taxi is available and we were nearly conned into getting it from the bus station to our hotel, it was $20 per person and a total rip off as you can walk to anywhere on arrival.

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The Hotel:

Within a few minutes, we were at our hotel amd checking in, Mt Buller Chalet Hotel & Suites. The room with the view of the mountain view was booked for 2 nights for $800. To say I was expecting luxury at the price, does not sound ridiculous and it completely failed. 

The room was freezing on arrival as we had to turn on radiators to heat up the room. Our ‘king’ bed was too small beds pushed together and very uncomfortable.  I was keen to have a shower but toiletries were scarce. The bathroom was not particularly clean, tiles were coming off the walls around the toilet and the furniture in the room was old, badly damaged and tired.

We decided to relax for awhile but the tv wasn’t working so we thought we would go to the shop to buy the items our room was missing and hoped it might warm up when we reurned. We mentioned the broken tv at reception and we were told it would be fixed but it wasn’t.
Avoid this ‘hotel’ at all costs, you certainly won’t get what you paid for and I was extremely annoyed that Mr. B spent so much money on such an overpriced, lower than hostel grade ‘hotel’.
There are other places to stay on Mt Buller or in Mansfield which would be more suitable and the availability of a regular bus to the mountain top makes it an easy trip to see the snow.

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Skiing
I’ll start off by saying that I was not great! It was a lot of fun to be kitted out in all our gear and we decided that it was best to get a lesson as it was our first time.

**Tip: If you book a lesson, you also get a lift pass for the day so this worked out really well.

Everyone seemed to be using the same space. The slope was very overcrowded with people like myself there for the first time and the pro’s who were having no difficulty at all. The lesson was great and they taught us the basics but unless you feel confident, more than one lesson might be needed.

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Eating Out

Breakfast
We had breakfast included with out accommodation and it was pretty good. A buffet style breakfast was available and there were quite a lot of options from cold to hot food items to choose from.
The only thing I was disappointed with was the instant coffee served, no that wasn’t a typo…instant coffee! Even though breakfast was included, you had to pay for a decent coffee and that just wasn’t right. 

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Lunch
We had a delicious lunch on Saturday at ABOM. We ordered a pizza to share, fries and a cold drink each. The pizza was served in a timely fashion and made fresh, you can see the chefs making the pizza bases and adding the toppings.

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Dinner
We ate in Black Cockatoo both nights. The restaurant is in the . The food in the restaurant was flawless but quite on the pricey side. Friday night was rather casual and we were advised to book a table for Saturday night as the attire was a little more formal.
As it was a little bit of a romantic getaway, I packed a dress and a pants and top combo for dinner as I wasn’t sure what to expect when packing. Based on the advise from the night before in regards to the restaurant, I opted for the dress only to see people sitting in snow gear in the restaurant and it made me feel a bit ridiculous.

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All in all, it was great to experience a ski break and given the opportunity to improve, I would give it a go again. For now, I think I’ll still to my sun and sight seeing holidays 😊