Your Complete Guide to Dinner Plain, VIC

Destination overview

Named because it was the spot horse-drawn coaches would stop for ‘midday dinner’ on their journey from Bright to Omeo, Dinner Plain is home to a small network of trails nestled high in the Victorian Alpine.

Sitting on land cradled between the Alpine National Park and Cobungra Station leasehold, the genesis of this network is due to a couple of motivated locals. They were sanctioned in 2017, and Dirt Art came a year later to put in the finishing touches.

Best Mountain Bike Trails in Victoria | Top trails in the Garden State

Mountain meditation

While there is one black-rated trail here, they’re all pretty family-friendly, and you won’t find any features that will leave you fully gripped and pushing the limits of your nerve and the high-speed rebound circuit in your fork. Everything is flowy, winding through the sub-alpine forest. Riding in Dinner Plain is as much about enjoying the rare opportunity to pedal in the Aussie Alpine as it is about slapping berms.

However, being located so high in the Alpine, there is no shortage of adventures that go beyond the trail network and take you to some pretty amazing places. Using multi-use trails and 4WD tracks, you can ride as far as Dargo if you want to or to scenic vistas on Mount Loche.

While Dinner Plain isn’t somewhere you’d spend a week specifically to ride your mountain bike, it will make a fantastic stop on a high-country road trip. If you’ve ever gone up to Hotham during the winter, you will know that the drive up the Great Alpine Road is worth it in itself. You can make a pretty great loop hitting Bright, Falls Creek and Dinner Plain, and even swing through Omeo once it opens, experiencing everything the Victorian High Country has to offer along the way.

Getting Dinner in Dinner Plain

Only a small village nestled among the snow gums, given its proximity to Hotham, Dinner Plain is already well set up with tourist infrastructure. There’s plenty of accommodation, both in AirBNB’s and hotels, there’s two pubs, a cafe and even a brand new distillery.