I actually have been to Bright before, I just don’t remember much of it. I was eighteen, on a trip with a group of mates and, slightly awkwardly, a couple of their parents who’d tagged along and paid for most of it. We drove up from Werribee, which is where I still live, and stopped at the Beechworth Bakery on the way in, because apparently that’s compulsory and nobody told me either. Because the group was a mix of ages, we skipped basically everything that involved a wine list, which in hindsight is most of what Bright is known for. What I do remember is a lot of time spent by the river and a campsite that saw better days.
So when a friend recently posted a string of holiday photos from some alpine town with orange trees everywhere and a river running through the middle of it, and I found out it was Bright, I felt a specific kind of betrayal that everyone I know had apparently done this trip properly except me.
Here’s what’s actually worth doing once you get there, plus the bits I clearly missed the first time round.
Ride the Murray to Mountains Rail Trail
This is the one everyone mentions first, and for good reason. It’s a converted rail line that runs for over a hundred kilometres through the region, though you don’t need to bite off the whole thing in one go. Hire a bike in town, pick a direction and just go until you feel like stopping for lunch. It’s flat enough that you won’t spend the whole ride regretting your fitness levels, which as someone who mostly exercises by walking to the fridge, I appreciated. I have no memory of anyone suggesting this on the original trip, which tracks, since none of us had brought bikes and getting eighteen year olds organised enough to hire any was clearly a bridge too far.
Walk (or drive) the Canyon Walk along the Ovens River
If you want scenery without much effort, the Canyon Walk follows the Ovens River and gives you a proper look at why people rave about this part of the state. It’s an easy one to slot in either as a warm up before a bigger day out, or as the entire day out if you’re feeling lazy (no judgement, I’ve done both). The river bit I do remember, mostly because we spent an entire afternoon floating down it without a scrap of sunscreen between us, on the very reasonable teenage logic that being in the water meant it didn’t count. It counted, and then some. Whatever sunscreen I had put on earlier that day had worn thin in patches, because what came up on my back over the next couple of days was, unmistakably, shaped like a love heart, right down to the dip in the middle. It looked serious enough that in hindsight I probably should have had it checked rather than just gritting my teeth through it. My skin peeled for days afterwards, I couldn’t lie on my back to sleep, and the drive home to Werribee was spent sitting bolt upright, unable to lean against the seat, wincing every time we hit a pothole on the Hume.
Drink your way through Bright Brewery
Bright has its own brewery sitting right on the river with the mountains as a backdrop, which is a fairly unfair advantage for a beer garden to have. Grab a tasting paddle, order something involving a wood fired pizza, and accept that you are not going anywhere for a couple of hours. This one was firmly off the table for us at the time, given roughly half the group weren’t old enough to be inside, let alone ordering off the tasting menu.
Explore the wineries and cellar doors
The High Country has quietly built itself a reputation as a serious cool climate wine region, and there are several cellar doors within easy reach of town if you’re happy to designate a driver (or book a tour and let someone else worry about it). Pair it with the local produce on offer and you’ll understand why so many visitors come up for a weekend and end up planning their next trip before they’ve left. Another one that simply didn’t happen on the teenage version of this trip, for the same reason as the brewery. It’s genuinely strange how much of a town you can miss just by being the wrong age for it.
Head into Mount Buffalo and Alpine National Park
Bright is the gateway town for both Mount Buffalo National Park and the wider Alpine National Park, and it’s worth setting aside at least a full day for whichever one suits your energy levels. Summer gets you hiking trails, lookouts and mountain biking, while winter turns the whole area into a ski trip without the need to fly anywhere. An old work colleague of mine ended up working at one of the mountain bike tracks in the area, and every time we reconnect online he tells me to bring the kids up one day, which I keep saying I will do, mostly once they’re a bit older and less likely to end the trip in a helmet-shaped incident of their own.
Let the kids loose at Howitt Park and the Bright Splash Park
If you’ve got children in tow, Howitt Park has a genuinely good playground and sits close to the town centre, with the Bright Splash Park nearby for when the weather cooperates. It’s the sort of setup that buys parents a solid hour of quiet while pretending you’re supervising closely.
It’s also, if I’m remembering the general area right, not far from where the campsite was, which had its own skate ramp for reasons I can no longer reconstruct, and where a shopping trolley I was riding down that ramp for reasons that made complete sense at the time flipped, sending me somersaulting off it in a way that came uncomfortably close to actual decapitation. I know exactly who filmed it, on an actual video camera no less, but I haven’t spoken to that guy in years, so tracking down the footage has become a genuine personal project with an awkward first step attached.
Time it for the Bright Autumn Festival if you can
Autumn is when Bright properly shows off. The town turns gold, orange and red for a stretch through late April into May, and the Bright Autumn Festival runs across it, celebrating the colours and the local produce at the same time. Book early if this is your plan, because apparently everyone else has the same idea the moment the leaves start turning.
Where to actually stay
Bright is small enough that you’ll want somewhere close to the action rather than out on the edge of town, and this is where a lot of first time visitors get caught out booking something that looks fine online and turns out to be a twenty minute drive from everything. It’s also where I’d gently suggest against camping if you’re anywhere near as bad at the outdoors as I apparently am. I was famously useless at putting up my own tent on that trip, to the point where the group made it a running joke for the rest of the week, and these days I’d also need a powered site for the CPAP machine I now sleep with, on account of the sleep apnoea, which is not a detail anyone needs to be managing by torchlight at a campground. That original trip was a camping trip, and I woke up one morning to find slugs had made their way into my tent overnight, which is not an experience I’m keen to repeat in the name of saving a bit of money. For accommodation in Bright, look for something walking distance to the town centre so you’re not adding a drive to every single outing, especially if wine is involved (which, this time, I fully intend for it to be).
Bright isn’t a big place, but it’s the sort of town that quietly fills up a long weekend without you noticing where the time went, assuming you’re old enough and sensible enough to do it properly. I was neither, the first time. Working on it. Small consolation prize on the drive home back then was a servo stop where someone talked me into buying a bag of salty liquorice that had been imported from somewhere in the Nordics, which is a taste I still cannot fully explain to anyone who hasn’t tried it, and would still recommend to nobody with any confidence.
