I visited the Victorian town everyone is talking about but no one knows

Breakfast in bed is usually a relaxing affair; this one, not so much.

My son and I are sitting on a portaledge – a canvas cot used by ardent rock climbers – suspended hundreds of metres above the valley floor, anchored to a rock on top of Mount Buffalo. Above us, Rowan Blakers from Bright Adventure Company is lowering down a hamper, and blanket to combat the chill air.

Moments before, my son and I abseiled (for the first time ever) off the same ledge and onto our seemingly levitating camp bed.

They say you first eat with your eyes, and if that’s true, we are already full to bursting. Granite rock at our back, sheer cliffs to the left and to the right a vast expanse of fuzzy-felt mountain peaks peeping through a sea of cloud trapped in the valleys, all bathed in pale morning light.

Inside our basket is a feast of granola, yoghurt and honey, muffins and fresh fruit as well as a thermos of hot water for making coffee and hot chocolate. At the end of breakfast, Blakers encourages us to sit on the edge of the portaledge with legs dangling over the side for a photo, an adrenaline-fuelled conclusion to our breakfast in the clouds.

If my breakfast felt a little precarious, that is nothing compared to the uncertainty that has surrounded the tourism businesses in this region of late.

I am spending a weekend in Porepunkah, in Victoria’s High Country, three-and-a-half hours’ drive north-east of Melbourne. It is better known as the region where a tragic incident saw Mount Buffalo close for two months, and tourism numbers have yet to fully return to strength. It can be frustrating to lose sovereignty over your own story, a fact that has rankled with many locals.

After we climb back from our perch, Blakers tells me that Porepunkah used to be so little known that he would say he was from Bright when meeting people for the first time.

“People know where Porepunkah is now, suddenly it’s not just a blip near the roundabout as you head to Bright,” he says. “But it’s known for the wrong reasons. I mean could you visit a better place? It’s beautiful, it’s cosmopolitan, it has the benefits of a city with good food and good coffee, but you get to be out in this incredible nature.”

Blakers is right. Dining the night before at Bright’s Koji Bird in Reed & Co Distillery I taste rice and barley shochu, yuzushu and chilli koji alongside hibachi-grilled chicken, fermented chilli and tofu topped with XO sauce and candied bacon.

Reed is the first place to make spirits in Australia using koji (Japanese rice culture). At the Punka Pub the following night I dine on prawn and chorizo pappardelle with chilli and garlic oil and local brews from Bright Brewery and King River Brewing.

With a pair of local e-bikes from All Terrain Cycles, we explore the Murray to the Mountains Rail Trail crossing the brand-new Colour Bridge over Roberts Creek with towering flowers and butterflies by design group Skunk Control.

Doubling back, we visit Ringer Reef Winery, a family-run affair where husband-and-wife team Mark and Julie Holm have wine tastings and live music on their lawn with views across to Mount Buffalo; the wines are superb and produced in such boutique quantities they are only available at cellar door and local restaurants.

Our base for this getaway is Riverstone, a Scandi-inspired three-bedroom home metres from the Punka Pub. An almost entirely glass frontage means you are bathed in natural light by day, there is a wood fire for cool nights, retro Mount Buffalo tourism posters and a path in the back garden that leads to tables and chairs huddled by the river.

Riverstone is also opposite the Rail Trail Cafe started in 2008 by husband and wife Lucy O’Dwyer and Jesse Rios. Rios, a Mexican American from East Los Angeles, is turning out breakfast burritos that could double as dumbbells from a rail-trail-adjacent former butcher’s shop, now decorated with vintage cycles, pot plants and menu boards jostling for your attention.

Lucy O’Dwyer says the couple were drawn to the region for its friendliness and community, something that has been lost in the headlines. “It’s about redirecting people’s attention back to what makes the area beautiful and attractive as a destination,” she says.

THE DETAILS

PLAY
Bright Adventure Company’s clifftop picnics need a minimum of two people per portaledge, but you can have two ledges next to each other for families. From $490 for two people. See brightadventurecompany.com.au

All Terrain Cycles hire bikes from $90 a day, and they can deliver bikes to accommodations on request. See allterraincycles.com.au