Bushwalking at Dandenong Ranges

Last Sunday on the 1st November, Ethan and I woke up to mist descending upon Melbourne. It was a strangely beautiful sight—this mass of grey snaking around the buildings and obscuring visibility—but it did made us contemplate whether to proceed with our plans of bushwalking that very day or not. Funnily enough, a check on the weather forecast online showed “Sunny, with light showers in the evening”. Ethan initially had doubts, but we proceeded with it anyway because bushwalking in the mist would be a stunner—and we were verily right.

#1 Melbourne in mist at 9am.

#2 Tram tracks—don’t worry, this track leads to a dead end.

#3 Beautiful Melbourne with an ad of “MAKING LOVE, DO IT LONGER!” marring it.

We took our sweet time getting to Belgrave Railway Station, our destination to commence our bushwalk. We went over to Melbourne Central station as I needed to withdraw some cash while Ethan wanted to purchase some smokes nearby (the shop was closed. Interesting fact: that shop along Lonsdale St sells contraband Malaysian cigarettes wtf).

According to Metlink’s website online, the direct train from Belgrave wasn’t running on Sunday, so we had to take a Lilydale train and change at Ringwood. We did just that—a 40-minute ride in all—but when we arrived, officers-in-charge told us that the Belgrave train could not come to Ringwood as “there has been a fatality on the train tracks”. Morbid.

We had to wait then for a replacement bus that would take us to Upper Ferntree Gully station, where we could then finally sit on the Belgrave train and get to our destination. It must have been a 10 to 15-minute wait (whilst an Indian toddler, carried by her mother/aunt/relative, kept smiling and laughing at our direction), and then two buses arrived, and we took the one that would bring us direct to Upper Ferntree Gully.

#4 My first time sitting on a bus in Melbourne, and the drivers do drive rather fast…

We took the train to Upper Ferntree Gully and I sank myself into Tash Aw’s The Harmony Silk Factory, but right after we left Tecoma (the 2nd last station on the line before Belgrave), the train stopped moving. A while later the driver announced that a tree has fallen onto the tracks and there’d be another replacement bus again… -___- What luck.

An elderly lady told a bunch of Asian girls that they should might as well walk using a lane she pointed out, as the scenery would be nice, plus it would be much quicker to walk rather than wait and take the bus.

#5 So we make full use of our eavesdropped conversation and did just that.

#6 And it was a pretty good walk, with greens surrounding the path.

#7 Some train tracks nearby.

#8 We arrived at Belgrave station, took a map (which wasn’t that useful), then decided to walk and find our way to the entrance of Dandenong Ranges.

#9 Behind this tavern is the entrance to the Ranges.

#10 Ethan munching on an apple in front of said entrance. I kinda like this pic.

#11 Et moi doing the same.

#12 A look at the signage.

#13 We stumble onto this bridge and a stream right after the entrance.

#14 And this is of Ethan.

I was wearing my Crocs as my Timberland shoes’ sole has gone out of commission and my repeated tries of using a shoe glue failed (clearly I can never repair stuffs), and that turned out to be not that great of an idea as my Crocs has lost its traction so it was a wee bit slippery—the grounds were moist and wet.

#15 Coming into a somewhat open terrain after we decided on a particular path from a path that branched off into two.

#16 Another shot of Ethan.

#17 Admiring the grandeur of the trees’ height.

#18 A more regular shot.

#19 Trapped by trees.

#20 At the same woods.

#21 Napping above a log.

#22 Where we had our somewhat miserable packed lunch of sandwiches with tuna. At this point, we were actually at an incorrect path as we were very near the main road instead of being in the Ranges, but we managed to locate another entrance.

#23 And then the mist rolled in…

#24 Old man with a walking stick hahaha.

#25 Another shot of the forest.

#26 At Sherbrooke Falls, where we had expected a grand waterfall of massive proportions and only found…

#27 …a gurgling “fall”. -_-

#28 A seat with a plague that says:

IN MEMORY OF JAMES DAVID DOAK AGED 25 YEARS, WHO WAS TRAGICALLY KILLED AT THIS SPOT BY A FALLING TREE ON 29th MAY 1999 A FOREST LOVER AT REST.

#29 The beauty of being in the forest with the mist is every bit amazing.

#30 At a different bridge.

#31 Not that clear of a picture of me, but this tree and the mist has a mystical, ethereal feel to it.

#32 An even better picture of before.

#33 We had intended to go to One Tree Hill (oh yes, no shit) but overshot it and ended up at a main road near the Alfred Nicholas Memorial Garden.

#34 The mist seems to be at its thickest here.

#35 I was feeling a tad bit tired by then, when we re-entered the forest (sorta) and was dragging my feet until we reached the main road and found ourselves near One Tree Hill!

And so, after taking some pics of some horses, we saw a map and inevitably followed it for quite some time only to realise we were heading the wrong way and would be completely bypassing One Tree Hill… v_v What’s even more stupid was, I was using Google Maps all the way (which requires a data connection, and there wasn’t any line at all the further off we were from Belgrave), when I could’ve used my Garmin which works perfectly offline.. meh, mistake learned.

#36 Pollination in progress wtf.

It was exhausting to keep walking down the main road (which was a tad bit dangerous), and at one point when I had to pee really badly, I veered off the path into a forest of sorts and did what I had to do. We eventually reached civilisation of sorts in the form of a gas station, and Ethan recharged himself by purchasing smokes—he was apparently dazed, sleepy, and tired, and was instantly recharged after smoking wtf.

#37 A dog on a bike.

#38 The One Tree Hill we missed. :(

#39 We were actually sorta in a hurry at this point, even if we have preferred to take our own sweet time to stop by and take photos etc as we wanted to make it back to the city before it gets dark.

#40 One of the common red Australian parrots. Forgot what it’s called.

#41 At a semi-open field.. where we finally reached Upper Ferntree Gully.

#42 Near a park. You can see two people doing a handstand at the bottom-right of this pic lol.

We didn’t know where the Upper Ferntree Gully railway station is, and ended up asking a man who was BBQing as we walked (in fact, there were many other people who were BBQing separately too, and it did not bode well for our rumbling stomachs).

#43 Being actually on top of a railway track.

We then made a quick call to Desmond, who then called Kelvin, and we met up at Camberwell (which was incidentally along the Lilydale or Belgrave line), and ate at one of the famous Italian restaurants there, Sofia.

#44 Delicious platter! Each dish was soo large that two people could eat it.

#45 Huge gelato which I could actually eat. =D (Although I don’t think I could ingest the chocolate. Still, this is bleeding great.)

#46 A pasta we had.

$47 And a pizza.

Utterly scrumptious meal. Despite the high prices for each dish ($12 and more), the amount of food plonked on each dish makes the prices similar to other restaurants.

#48 Kelvin and I.

#49 Ethan and Desmond.

Sofia is a must-go to anyone who arrives in Melbourne—the Italian food was just sinfully good.

After eating, we walked around for a bit then returned to the Camberwell railway station to wait for a train for about 20 minutes. When it finally came, it supposedly doesn’t take any passengers -_- so we had to go out and wait even more for the tram to arrive.. and sitting a tram takes an even longer time to arrive at our destination compared to sitting in a train.

Making the bushwalk on that day was one of the best decisions ever as the mist simply adds to the bushwalking experience. Though for some reason for the next couple of days, I had sore throat and flu (probably through exerting myself too much and had little sleep, thanks to the exams and Sandringham’s beach the day after the exams), but I’m three quarters in the midst of recovery. The medicine I picked up from the pharmacy, “EaseaCold”, seems to have helped a lot as well, though it did not come cheap at about $15.

Here’s a map of where I took the photos (thanks to my geotagged photos), where you could also prolly see the path we took (starting from the bottom-right):