Hey Guys,
Thanks for the feedback. We had a great time in the High Country. We stayed in Bright for a 3 nights and then moved down to Mansfield for another few nights. Both places a worth visiting and are fantastic as bases to go on day trips from.
Bright itself is a nice little village and brewery is certainly worth a look. We roughly followed layback40's suggestion below one day and had a great day out. Nothing too challenging once you get used to staring at the sky through the windscreen but a great day out.
Driving between Bright and Mansfield we took the smaller roads as a short cut rather then returning to the Hume Hwy. The short cut probably added 4 hours to the trip as we found ourselves on some very rough tracks (not difficult, just rough and slow going) but it was a hell lot more fun than the freeway.
Mansfield is another great little town. We spent 2 days up around Mt Buller, one day on the tracks to the north (quite a few were closed after the rain though) working our way around to Craig's Hut and one day to the south (which probably had the better tracks) getting around to Lovick's Hut. Some absolutely beautiful countryside with spectacular views everywhere.
One thing I quickly learned in the High Country is to reduce your expected daily travel distances. The tarmac roads are slow going (very twisty) and dirt roads can be very rocky making for even slower going. You don't get anywhere in a hurry so for anyone planning a trip don't be too adventurous with how far you expect to get every day. Concentrate on a couple of areas like we did and leave the rest for another trip. You might not cover much distance but don't expect to go easy on the fuel though. In some cases my fuel consumption was at least 30% higher than I've ever seen it before and is just because there was so much low range crawling.....you're always either climbing into the skies and hoping for the best or thanking the guy who invented seat belts when you're coming back down the other side
For anyone who's not been to the High Country it's definitely, definitely worth the trip and now I just want to go back and see the rest. As Jackofall says, you could spend weeks (or months) there and still not see it all.
