History
Aboriginal people made summer ascents to Mount Buffalo and other Alpine areas to gather and feast on protein-rich Bogong Moths that cluster in rock crevices, and also to meet and hold ceremonies.
Explorers Hume and Hovell named the mountain in 1824 from its supposed resemblance to a buffalo. Gold miners and botanists later began to find routes up to the plateau. With the beginning of tourism in the 1880s, an area around the spectacular Gorge was reserved as a national park in 1898. The park has been enlarged several times since and now takes in all the plateau and surrounding slopes. The Mount Buffalo Chalet was built in 1910, soon after the first road to the plateau was constructed, replacing some earlier more "rustic" accommodation. The park became a popular holiday destination for succeeding generations and a place for early skiing and ice skating ventures. In fact Buffalo had the first ski tow in Australia. For many Melbournians in the pre-war years, a trip to Mount Buffalo was their first encounter with snow.
When the Mount Buffalo Chalet was run by the Victorian Railways the restaurant was known as an official "Railways Refreshment Room". Staff worked in railway uniforms, blew whistles and imposed curfews for guests. Railway tickets were issued for equipment and activities such as "Motor to Wangaratta" and "Skis, steel edged with cane stocks and boots 2nd Grade 8/6-"?
Read more about this topic: Mount Buffalo National Park
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