Briathrail // Albert 2MNG

Day 6 – Melbourne

I had two full days planned in Melbourne. But budget got tight after I squeezed in a brief stay in Bali, so I crossed off a paid tour and kept it to just one. And that one is spent in full for this day – a roundtrip up the snowy Mount Buller. Admittedly, this tour was the singular one I paid the most attention to, even after I booked it, as it was the main reason I sold myself on to visiting Melbourne.

I have not experienced snow for my entire life. I’ve seen it on TV and in pictures, but I have never felt snow. So when I was booking for my Australian pre-winter trip, I was really angling for any possibility to see and experience snow, even if it’s just for a few hours. To be fair, I also planned winter-season trips to Hokkaido and Jeju Island before, but schedules and priorities led me to book other things. This time, it was perfect timing that no colliding priorities presented themselves, so I was giddy about booking a winter resort. If there’s anything I can pull as a positive from paying for this, I can 1) finally cross snow off my bucket list, and 2) give me a benchmark for either Jeju Island or Hokkaido. I trust my personal benchmarks way more than online benchmarks. Like, how many layers to wear, how to pace myself in snow, what am I OK and not OK with when it comes to gear and temp, what is my bodily reaction to snow and how can I mitigate it in the future. Those are really personal benchmarks and checks that I would like to extract from this trip up Mount Buller.

So my prep for this Buller trip began in May – by booking the right trip package. I used three places to look for them: Klook, Agoda, and TripAdvisor. I read a lot of reviews, I researched the companies listed that handled the tours. Lots of time reading their terms and conditions PDFs (I read those, because I’m not an idiot). So for those wanting to book a Buller trip, here are some tips:

• There are two main kinds of “trips” you can book for a roundtrip up Mt. Buller – one is the “coach transfer” and one is the “private tour“. The first one is merely a drop on, drop off kind of service, usually a bus or a big van-like vehicle. This is the preferred service for those who are used to going to Buller and has no need for a private tour guide. This service can be same day, and some offer the return time to be for next day if the customer plans to stay overnight in one of the hotels in Buller. This service being what it is, can be attractive for those budget-conscious and travel-confident people. The second one is what it says, a guided tour for a small group of maybe 8-12 people. There will be a tour guide, sometimes fluent in other languages like Korean or Japanese, and always on-site or can be contacted via a messaging app to assist their customers during their stay up Buller, and sometimes the trip includes some kind of unique activity, like a one-hour circuit walk. Being a guided tour, expect the expense to be on the high side.
  
  Also, some tour trips have a “pit stop”. I’ll say that you should keep a very very close eye at the trip itinerary. The “pit stop” is usually for the operators that have an extra partner for snow gear rental equipment, usually at Mansfield. And as the trip up the mountain can be long, some operators include an informal pee break stop, usually at one of the towns along the way, most of them choose Yea.
  
  I suggest you start deciding which type fits your budget and preference. For me as a solo traveler with a good grasp of English and limited budget, I booked a trip in Klook for a “coach transfer” service, which costed me SGD103 – more or less USD80.
  
• Another very important thing to keep an eye on when booking the trip is to book a “snow” date. What I mean is, book a date that you are very confident that there will be snow up the mountain. This is very important if you are aiming for the dates before and end of the main winter season in Melbourne. If “before”, you are risking that your trip up Buller would be just snow made from snow machines. If ‘after”, you are risking water sludge and maybe slushy snow as the snow is starting to melt. My advice is, book a date as close you can get to Melbourne’s more guaranteed winter season dates. From my research, it’s from June 1 to August 31. The expected snowier dates are usually from July 1 to August 1, so if you can get as close to the month of July, your chances of snow is as good as gold.
  
• In addition to above, one of my sneakier tips is to use the snow resorts’ “snow cams”. Most snow resorts in Melbourne have livestreams starting in early June to allow people to see when the resorts’ ski routes are covered in snow. This one I used, and I watched everyday leading to the departure to Sydney. I booked June 25, as it was the closest I could get given my plans for Melbourne. By June 10, I started to see the Buller resort run their snow machines already, and by June 21, the pathways and ski routes are coated with a good thick layer of snow with no machines in sight, so I was assured at least there will be snow, but how thick? I’ll see when I got there.
  
• This can be negligible, but for me, I booked a hotel that was within agreeable walking distance to the pick-up area for the trip. Most of these day-long coach transfer services start very early so to give their customers more hours up the mountain. Melbourne CBD have trams in the early morning, but for me, I wanted that morning exercise, and maybe see some buildings along the way. The hotel I booked was more or less 2km from the pick-up point.

After a lot – at least two weeks of shortlisting and research – I booked a “coach transfer” service in Klook. It checked a lot of favorable things from me – it used a bus, the pick-up time and place was decently early and decently within a good range of hotels, and it had a very good amount of time allowed for their customers to stay in the mountain. But the biggest point for me that they scored on is the return time estimate. This was the only trip I found that at least targeted a return at 7-8pm, which made it an easier decision. While I was researching things to do on Melbourne on June 24-27, I spied upon the Queen Victoria Night Market on Wednesday nights, so it aligned perfectly. After the winter trip, I can make a quick stop at my hotel, dress down and head to the night market for dinner.

Also, extra points for the tour operator using WhatsApp for the trip service communications. The reviews were mostly complimentary (and most of the negatives were from morons that expected a private tour service but not willing to pay for it). The one I booked was from a company called “Extragreen Holidays”, just for reference. From their comms, it seems they cater to tourists that can speak either English or Chinese.

For the gear, as detailed in my previous blogs, I really tried to bring as many layers as I could. Also, I only started to buy gear when I finalized the Klook purchase. I bought most of my snow clothes at Decathlon. So for those buying snow gear, I have some tips too:

• Decathlon has lots of winter season gear. So for me in Singapore, it was the only place that was practical and cheap to me. I suggest, for some items, do not buy online, buy in person. For me, it helped my thought processes for buying the right gears. Another tip is, buy in the branches that have a large layout, like Orchard and Bedok.
  
  Also, Decathlon sells second-hand items that were refurbished for reuse, and many of them – really, like 90% – are of almost the same quality as brand new. And cheaper.
  
• Do not be afraid to go one size bigger. One advantage of buying in person is you can judge the clothing equipment more intimately than an online purchase. If you feel that a base layer is too tight even if the size listed is what you are used to, go one size bigger.
  
• The things I bought at Decathlon were:
  • Men’s Winter Thermal Base Layer Top 500, XL Black (around SGD14)
  • Men’s Winter Thermal Base Layer Top 100, XL Black (around SGD10)
  • Men’s Winter Padded Jacket MT50, 2XL Black (around SGD 25)
  • Men’s Winter Thermal Base Layer Bottom 100, EU XL Black (around SGD10)
  • Men’s Ski Thermal Wear Bottom 500, XL Black (around SGD8)
  • Adult Ski and Snowboard Socks 50, 8.5-11 Black (around SGD8)
  • Gloves Ski 100 Light, L Black (around SGD20)
  • Adult Ski Neck Warmer Firstheat, Black (around SGD3)
  • Adult Ski Knit Beanie 100, Navy (around SGD9)
  • Men’s Running Tight Shorts Kiprun, EU XL (around SGD9)
  • Men’s Ski Winter Pants 500, Black XL (around SGD60)
    
    These were cumulatively expensive AF. Ended up doing three trips to Decathlons as I was wracked by some indecisions that I gave in to.
    
  • Autumn Winter Outdoor 3-in-1 Suit Unisex Detachable Windproof and Waterproof Coat, 2XL Black (around SGD46)
    
    I also bought this winter-suitable coat via Shopee, as the equivalent of it was too expensive for my budget in Decathlon. My reason for it was, while I ran the risk of it being a wrong size and end up badly, it wasn’t bulky at all, and it was also adaptable for use in rainy typhoon seasons. The winter coats in Decathlon were both bulky, heavily padded, and only for winter.
    
• Some tour agencies/operators going to Buller also offer rental equipment service – either they are hooked to a rental company at Mansfield, or they simply act as a safe intermediary for you to book online for equipment at any of the rental equipment shops dotting Buller near the village center. For Extragreen, I asked for their assistance to book a rental for snow walking boots, and they hooked me up for the shoes at the “Ski Hire at Village Square Centre” at Buller, and they charged me AUD25 for then to facilitate my preorder.
  
  For me, I went for a snow boot/shoe rental instead of buying one at Decathlon. It was a decision based on my luggage weight and the practicality of lugging around a one-time use heavy pair of shoes. I looked at the winter heavy-ass shoes they had in Decathlon, and I’m like, nope. I’d rather rent that one.

With all those prepped and ready to be used, the clothes occupied a good chunk of my luggage. But an advantage of the extra clothes was padding for some of my more fragile souvenir items.

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