Victoria (Eastern Region)

Mansfield is the gateway to Melbourne's winter playground of Mount Buller. A short two hour drive from the city and you're there. In whatever season, the town and its surrounding district offers you much to see and do. Stand in the main street and look towards the mountains. Mount Buller and Mount Stirling are immediately in front of you across the wide valley of the Delatite River.

Mansfield has always been the centre of grazing country. Here you will find some of the great stories and the great story tellers of the country. Many of the original families are still here, some now your guides to the secrets of the district and its history.

You can go on horseback into the mountains, staying overnight in the old cattlemen's huts dotted through the bush. At night the sky is full of stars and the mountains seemingly endless. Here you can relive the quiet nights of the pioneers, yarn around a camp-fire, surrounded by the quiet of the mountains and the wildlife that inhabit them, become part of the landscape and its history.

If you enjoy solitude there is great fishing around Mansfield, in the Delatite and Howqua Rivers and Lake Eildon itself. Mansfield and the country around it offer great opportunities for bushwalking and photography.

And if you're really adventurous and want to see the country from a different angle, take a flight in a hot air balloon.

There is a wide variety of accommodation to be had, from camping sites to modern motels to Iuxurious and old world bed and breakfasts. You can rent a cottage on a working farm or stay in old banks or shearers' quarters.

Good food is here in abundance, from old-fashioned solid pub meals to candle-lit dinners at first class restaurants. And try the local wines, cool climate varieties with their special characteristics and flavours.

Mansfield is one of the towns where Ned Kelly is not remembered with affection. Just out of town at Stringybark Creek in the Wombat Ranges, Ned Kelly and his gang killed three troopers, Sergeant Kennedy and Constables Lonigan and Scanlon. A fourth member of the patrol, Constable McIntyre, escaped. This was the crime for which Kelly was finally hanged. In the main street opposite the Mansfield Hotel you will find a memorial to the dead troopers.

Practicalities

Among the many local outfits are Stirling Experience, for 4WD tours around Mount Buller and Mount Stirling; Stoney’s Bluff and Beyond Trail Rides, Mount Buller Road, for great trail rides; and Mountain Adventure Safaris, for rafting, canoeing and other activities.

The Alzburg Inn Resort, 39 Malcolm St,is a popular hotel for skiers, while somewhat lower in price is the neat and friendly Mansfield Backpacker Inn, 112 High St, which organizes all sorts of activities, particularly hang-gliding. The managers also have good work contacts for fruit-picking in summer and for the Mount Buller ski resort in winter. The Mansfield Travel Lodge next door has motel units and is managed by the same people. 

The area around Mansfield is renowned for luxurious B&Bs, the most famous of which is the very expensive Howqua Dale Gourmet Retreat, south of town near Howqua, which is run by two chefs and is renowned for its outstanding food; cooking courses are sometimes held here. On a more modest scale are the Alpine Country Cottages, 5 The Parade, two cottages sleeping four people each, and with a spa on the premises; and, further afield in Barwite (on the Mansfield–Whitfield road), the lovely Wombat Hills Cottage at 55 Lochiel Rd, which has three bedrooms, tennis courts, and great views of Mount Buller and the Mansfield Valley.

In winter, Mansfield–Buller Bus Lines run frequent bus services for skiing from Mansfield to Mount Buller in conjunction with the V/Line bus service from Melbourne to Mansfield (tel 03/5775 2606).

Events

• HARVEST FESTIVAL in February