Mount Donna Buang
Australia's busiest ski resort of the 1930s, an hour from Melbourne, which drew up to 12,000 people in a day and was abandoned by skiers in the early 1950s - it never had a single ski lift.
- Region
- Victoria
- Country
- Australia
- Status
- abandoned
- Year opened
- 1925
- Year closed
- 1951
- Reason for closure
- Erratic snow at only 1,250 m, the Black Friday fires of January 1939 which burnt three huts, wartime petrol rationing, and above all better roads after 1945 that let Melbourne skiers reach the higher and more reliable resorts at Mount Buller, Mount Hotham, Falls Creek and Baw Baw. The Ski Club of Victoria was the last to leave in 1951 and the 1952 season saw virtually no skiers.
History
Mount Donna Buang stands at 1,250 m above Warburton, 76 km by rail from Melbourne and just 38 km beyond the end of the electrified suburban network at Lilydale - closer to a capital city than any other Australian snowfield. The Warburton Progress Association invited skiers to inspect the mountain in June 1924 and cleared the first run; Stan Flattely led the first organised ski party on 11 July 1925. By 1937 six runs had been cut through the myrtle beech and woollybutt, the principal one being the Main Run, originally called the Ski Slide, which was widened to 20 m in 1926 and 40 m in February 1929. Four clubs built cabins - the Melbourne Walking Club in 1930, the University Ski Club and the Ski Club of Victoria in 1934, and the Rover Scouts - and the mountain had cafes and kiosks, a ski hire run by Erik Johnson Gravbrot, first aid posts at the Ten Mile Turntable and the summit, shelter huts, a summit lookout tower and a large stone ski jump. It was, uniquely, a major resort with no uphill transport whatsoever: every run was earned on foot. On Sunday 7 July 1935 between 10,000 and 12,000 people came up in over 2,000 vehicles, more than modern Victorian resorts see in a day. Decline followed the Black Friday fires of January 1939, wartime petrol rationing and the post-war shift to higher mountains; the University Ski Club moved its cabin to Mount Buller in 1950, and although work parties in March and May 1951 extended the runs and rebuilt the jump, the 1952 season found the skiers gone. The summit lookout tower and shelter huts survive, along with the University Ski Club chimney marked by a 1979 plaque, the ruins of the Ski Club of Victoria cabin, the partly bulldozed remains of the stone ski jump, and ski runs slowly closing over. A staircase built down the centre of the Main Run rules out any return to skiing; the mountain is now a snowplay destination.
Runs
- Main Run
Sources and further reading
More in Australia
Location
-37.7065, 145.6812