10 Interesting Facts About Mt Buller

This weekend marks the beginning of the ski season at Mt Buller, one of Victoria’s most popular alpine resorts. Whether you’re a fan of carving up the white powder on your skis, or warming your toes by a roaring fire and sipping hot chocolate whilst the snow falls outside, Mt Buller has something to offer everyone.

Melbourne on the Move offers bus hire from Melbourne to Mt Buller as well as day tours when there is sufficient snow on the ground. To celebrate the start of the season, we’ve put together 10 interesting facts about our favourite winter wonderland.

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  1. The Taungurung people are the traditional owners and occupiers of Mt Buller and have lived off the land for more than 2,000 generations. The Taungurung people used the stars and lunar cycles to define seven distinct seasons which included a flood and fire season.
  2. The first chalet on Mt Buller was built in 1929, but European settelers were living on the mountain as early as the 1830s.
  3. Powers Lookout near Mt Buller was a popular hideout for some of Australia’s most famous bushrangers and was the place where Harry Power was captured on June 5, 1870. Power was a fearsome bushranger in his own right, but is also known as the man who took on Ned Kelly as an apprentice and taught him the tricks of the trade.
  4. Mt Buller was named (somewhat obsurely) by the surveyor and explorer Makor Sir Thomas Livingstone Mitchell after an acquaintance in the Colonial Office. Perhaps a more fitting etymology is the Aborigional name for the mountain, Bulla Bulla, which means ‘good’.
  5. The Australian High Country where Mt Buller is located is full of unique wildlife and wallabies, echidnas, and wombats are all common sights.
  6. Mt Buller was part of Victoria’s lucrative 19th century gold rush and there is still plenty of evidence of the mining done in the area before bushfires in 1939 destroyed many of the operations.
  7. The mountain has over 300 hectares of skiing terrain which is divided up into 80+ runs, 20% of which are beginner, 45% are intermediate, and 35% are advanced.
  8. Skiing and snowboarding aren’t the only winter activities on offer at Mt Buller; there is also tobogganing, telemarking, snowshoeing, snowgaining, and sled dog tours. The frosty peak of Mt Buller is also a popular spot with ice climbers.
  9. For those who aren’t interested in snowsports, there are over 30 bars and resturaunts on the mountain as well as a spa retreat, the National Alpine Museum, a cinema and a scupture park.
  10. Just 208 kilometers (3 hours) from Melbourne, Mt Buller is the closest Alpine resort to the city, making it the perfect place for a daytrip to the snow.