Farm Stays in Victorian High Country, VIC

The High Country of north-east Victoria — the valleys around Mansfield, Merrijig, Bright, Porepunkah and the King and Ovens rivers — is the most storied farm landscape in Australia. This is where the mountain cattlemen ran stock onto the alpine plains for 150 years, where The Man from Snowy River was filmed, and where the hills still carry their huts. Three to three and a half hours from Melbourne, the country rises from river-flat dairy and beef farms through tobacco-shed valleys (now vineyards and hop gardens) to the snowgum high plains under Mount Buller, Mount Buffalo and the Bogong massif.

If you ride, this is the region: a farm stay in the Victorian High Country is one of the best bring-your-horse holidays on the continent. Properties around Mansfield and Merrijig in particular cater to travelling horses with yards and paddocks, and the trail network — from gentle river tracks to multi-day rides toward Craig's Hut — is unmatched. Non-riders do fine too: many hosts run beef cattle and welcome guests into the daily routine, and the fishing, hiking and mountain biking are all serious.

Autumn is the High Country's signature season, when Bright's avenues of European trees turn scarlet and the valleys fill with still golden light. Winter puts farms within 45 minutes of the Buller and Hotham snowfields; summer means river swimming and long twilight evenings. Whatever the season, the last half hour of every drive here — mountains rising ahead, paddocks alongside — sets the tone for the stay.