We had a plan. A great plan. Mount Feathertop via the Razorback which is a 23km return, iconic ridge walking alpine hike up Australia’s second highest mountain. We'd been researching it for weeks, checking forecasts obsessively across no fewer than three different weather platforms, and packing and repacking our bags with the kind of precision (or obsession) usually reserved for people who take themselves far too seriously.

And then the mountain had other ideas.

After arriving in Bright on Thursday, we spent Friday puttering around the town. This included Ant getting a haircut during which he shared our plans with Tammy at the barbers. Tammy wasn’t an advocate for the plan and suggested we talk to Fraser at Bright Outdoor Centre. Turns out Fraser is the kind of person you want to talk to before doing something ambitious in the Victorian High Country: he knows the conditions, calls it straight, and doesn't sugarcoat. His verdict on the Razorback after the week's snowfall was that it probably wasn’t a great idea for our out and back plan.

We practised personal growth and listened to the advice. Some more reluctantly that others.

So. Plan B. The Bungalow Spur from Harrietville. I think in hindsight we kind of filed this as a consolation hike instead of doing the real one.

What it actually was was roughly 9 kilometres in one direction: up. With almost no flat sections to speak of and the kind of gradient that looks deceptively easy but gets more telling with every metre. We got worked over.

The trail starts innocuously enough in the forest below Harrietville: snow gums and alpine ash, quiet and beautiful and giving absolutely no indication of what it intends to do to your legs for the next several hours. And then it just... keeps going up. There's a particular cruelty to a trail with no false summits: you always know exactly how much further you have to go, and that information is not always welcome.

There is always an upside thought: a hard trail in a beautiful place: it earns you things.

About an hour in, we stopped dead on the track. There was a lyrebird, not ten metres away, completely unbothered by our presence, doing what lyrebirds do: moving through the undergrowth with that prehistoric unhurriedness that makes you feel like you've stumbled into a different era entirely. We watched it for a good few minutes in complete silence. Worth every step of the uphill to get there. I felt like David Attenborough!

The fungi were extraordinary. I'm not a fungi expert: we mainly look at them to take photos for our nephews. The diversity along the Bungalow Spur in early June was wild. Bracket fungi, tiny caps pushing through the snow, clusters on fallen logs and bright green skinhead mushrooms. If you're a fungi person, this trail in winter is worth doing for that alone.

And then there's the environment itself. The transition from the lower forest into the alpine zone is gradual and then suddenly dramatic. The trees get shorter and more twisted, the snow deepens, the light changes, and you become acutely aware that you are now somewhere properly remote. It's the kind of landscape that recalibrates something in you. We don't get enough of this in everyday life, and days like Saturday are a good reminder of that.

Our hard turnaround was 1pm, and we stuck to it - a decision we'd made in advance specifically so there'd be no debate or summit fever in the moment. This is smart in planning but mildly heartbreaking when it comes to execution.

At 1pm we were 700 metres short of Federation Hut. Well short of the summit. The peak wasn't even a conversation. Mainly because some of us (me) could barely talk by that point. So we executed the plan and turned around.

So…it turns out The Bungalow Spur was not a consolation hike. It is a serious, sustained climb that deserves its Grade 4 rating and will remind you of its existence for at least two days afterward. (Hello, Voltaren. Hello, magnesium spray. We meet again.). But it's also genuinely beautiful, properly alpine, and the kind of trail that gets better in your memory as the muscle soreness fades.

We didn't get to Federation Hut. We didn't get close to the summit. The Razorback remains unfinished business.

Which is why we're already booked to go back in November this time via the Razorback as originally planned, finishing down the Bungalow Spur as a one-way traverse. The mountain will still be there and we'll be ready.