Alpine skiing areas

Mount HOTHAM

Spending the weekend at Lakes Entrance/Metung (about 4h away from Melbourne by car) we decided to have a day-trip out to one of Australia's famouse mountains.

Only 2h of driving from the coast is the closest skiing area called mount Hotham.
I have to say I was more than surprised to see what Australia has to offer here in terms of wintersports. You wouldn't necessarily expect an alpine holiday village such as the ones in Switzerland, France or Austria on this tropical island.

Especially travel agencies all over the world should inform people more about these winter activities, in my opinion, as you only hear about the well known beaches, dangerouse animals, insects, and road trips,...etc.

Once you are up there you will find a skiing village deluxe with various chairlifts, hotels, spas, restaurants and appartments ala apre ski style.

It is common to buy a house or apart further down the hill at "Dinner plain" where an architect designed the whole area so the houses look similar to each other in form and colour to create the feeling of a suburban cottage.

Usually people rent the places out or have them as their holiday escape from the te city and it is even possible to fly directly from Melbourne or other places in Aussie to Hotham airport(find map below)

Going up the mountains now in April is now a bit lonely, dry and not much to see as there is no snow because the main season starts from July to September. ( I added a view images below to show how it looks like in winter)It would be possible now to go horse riding or hicking but not much more apart from that.

Standing at the upper platform in the center of Hotham you have a breath-taking view over the hills and other mountains around. According to the very dry summers here in Australia mount Hotham was one of these dangerous areas where massive bush-fires went all over the forests and you can still see the damage they caused on the trees.

For me as Austrian it was fascinating to image how this skiing area must look like when they have up to 2m of snow and people from all over Australia and the world come and visit this place, go down the slopes and party at one of the apre ski locations for the rest of the evening.

Especially young people come here quite often to ski, snowboard or just party in a winter wonderland.

Would be worth to consider coming back here or even work as ski-or snowboard instructer, but on second thought there are not many Europeans who like to exchange their summer during July until Sep. with a winter-holiday when there is summer everywhere else.Well you never know...

Apart from Mount Hotham are other Australian skiing areas such as
1) Falls Creek
2) Perisher in the area of New South Wales
3) Mount Buller
4)...and many more...

Find the skiing areas with the nr.1)2)3) below!

What can I say, Australia has everything, from tropical beaches, deserts and even alpine skiing areas with real mountains. Brilliant!