High Country Escape - Britz

Four nights and 737 kilometres in a loop from Melbourne in a campervan, through the Victorian high country.

The Great Alpine Road runs up the Ovens Valley to Bright, a tobacco town turned mountain resort where the deciduous trees the settlers planted turn the whole place orange in autumn, which is unusual in Australia and locally famous for it.

Beechworth follows, a gold rush town whose granite public buildings went up in the 1850s and whose streetscape is largely unaltered, with Ned Kelly’s committal hearing having been held in the courthouse. Milawa comes next for cheese, mustard and wine within a few kilometres of one another, then Mansfield in the foothills, with Craig’s Hut up in the Alpine National Park above it, built for The Man from Snowy River and rebuilt after bushfire. Lake Eildon closes the loop.

Britz supply the camper and the day-by-day plan, and the hire is priced live per vehicle rather than per person; campsites, fuel, ferries, park fees and activities are all extra, with a nil-excess insurance pack available at booking. The high country roads on this route are sealed but steep and winding in places, which a long camper feels rather more than a car does. Autumn is the season to aim for, and the alpine roads above Mansfield and Bright can be closed by snow between June and October. Craig’s Hut itself sits at the end of an unsealed track that is not suitable for a standard camper, so that last stretch usually means a tour or a walk.