I don't know much about the place myself mate, but some riders I know do a yearly pilgrimage to Halls Gap up in the Grampians region and rave about it. It's approximately three hours from Melbourne, a little mountain range that has a Host of national park stuff, accommodation and no doubt good astro sites. Suss it out.
http://images.google.com.au/images?h...=1&sa=N&tab=wi
Here is bit about light extintion and observing sites in VIC.
how much extinction:- the best possible sky transparency is where aerosols are neglible in which case the baseline values for extinction are:
- At sea level, the value is around 0.25 mag. per airmass; for 2000m it's around 0.11 or 0.12, for Mauna Kea it's 0.09.
thus, in Victoria: - one would be advised to view from as far inland as possible, preferably north of the Dividing Ranges and away from light pollution, although there is the problem of dust storms and bush fires causing impaired transparency particularly in late summer/early autumn.
- To go to altitudes > 1500m you will be confined to the alpine region in north-eastern Victoria such as Lake Mountain (1433m), Mt Buller (1804m), Mt Buffalo (1723m), Mt Baw Baw (1563m) and the others in the Alpine National Park whereas in western & central Victoria the only three options > 900m are Mt Macedon (1011m but perhaps too close to Melbourne), Mt William (1167m) in the Grampians and Mt Lhangi Gheran near Ararat.
http://www.ayton.id.au/gary/Science/...st_viewing.htm
Frank.