Explore
Connect with nature, just an hour and a half from Melbourne.
Slow down and follow the river. The walks are short and the trees are not, and most of what you came for is a ten-minute drive from the pub.
On foot
The walking around Noojee is gentle; the scale of it isn’t. Trails here run an hour or two, but they pass beneath mountain ash — Eucalyptus regnans, the tallest flowering plant on earth — and alongside water that’s been falling since long before the mills. The Toorongo–Amphitheatre loop is 2.2 kilometres of fern gully and cascade, flat once you’ve climbed to the first lookout; the Ada Tree is a slower wander through cool-temperate rainforest — myrtle, beech, sassafras — to a single 300-year-old giant, 76 metres up. None of it asks much of your legs. All of it asks you to look up.
Diamond-pattern snow chains and Mt Baw Baw approved toboggans, on the corner of Henty Street and the Mt Baw Baw Tourist Road — the last stop before the mountain. Card payments only.
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A forest campground on the road up to Mt Baw Baw, named for the old logging checking station once sited nearby — a base camp for alpine walks and drives.
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A short boardwalk loop through cool-temperate rainforest and giant tree ferns, near Neerim Junction.
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Riverside bush camping on the Latrobe River, west of Noojee — informal sites among the trees for a quiet overnight stop.
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Follow the old timber-tramway formation up the Loch Valley.
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Melbourne’s closest downhill ski resort — about an hour up the mountain from Noojee.
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Fishing, camping, snow chain, clothing and equipment hire on Henty Street — one of the best trout tackle shops going, open 7am–8pm daily. Phone 0447 849 079.
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A grassy picnic reserve on the Latrobe River in the heart of town — playground, sheltered tables, toilets and parking. An easy family spot by the water.
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Victoria's tallest surviving wooden trestle bridge, and the trailhead for walking and cycling tracks through towering forest — including the easy 3 km rail trail to the Heritage Railway Station Precinct. Pack a picnic.
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A spacious riverside campground on the Loch River, with easy access to the Ada Tree, the Trestle Bridge and Toorongo Falls. (Temporarily closed.)
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A family-run organic flower farm on Ridge Road — chemical-free seasonal blooms, wedding flowers and wholesale, grown in the Noojee hills for nearly four decades. Phone 0427 929 443.
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A rainforest walk along Island Creek to a 300-year-old, 76-metre mountain ash — one of Victoria’s giant trees.
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The rivers here punch above their size. Fisheries surveys put the little Toorongo among the best brown- and rainbow-trout water in the state — clear, deep-holed, the kind of stretch Melbourne fly shops trade stories about. The Latrobe runs browns to a touch over a kilo (most nearer a good pan size), with river blackfish besides; the Loch rewards anyone who can read tight water. Early and late in the season, when the flow is up and cold, the nymphing comes good. No gear, no problem — the Alpine Trout Farm hands you a rod and a barbecue and lets you skip straight to the eating.
Sleep under the stars
Two State Forest campgrounds sit within ten minutes of town, and both are the honest kind: grassy flats along the Toorongo, a fire pit, a picnic table, a drop toilet, and not much else. Toorongo Falls Campground spreads along the river a short walk from the falls; the Poplars, out on the Loch, keeps a communal fire and a shelter for when the weather turns. Bring your own water and take your rubbish home — there’s no shop past town. In return: the river, the frogs, and a sky with nothing in the way of it.
A forest campground on the road up to Mt Baw Baw, named for the old logging checking station once sited nearby — a base camp for alpine walks and drives.
See on mapRiverside bush camping on the Latrobe River, west of Noojee — informal sites among the trees for a quiet overnight stop.
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A bush campground beside the Toorongo River, a short drive from Toorongo Falls — a quiet base for walking the falls circuit and exploring the surrounding forest.
See on mapWalk quietly and the forest fills in around you — lyrebirds working the leaf litter, crimson rosellas, a kookaburra sizing you up, the wallaby that heard you first. Dawn and dusk are the best of it. Feed nothing; the valley does better staying wild.