Greener getaways: a trip to Melbourne’s Dandenong Ranges
This article is part of a new guide to Melbourne from FT Globetrotter
In late 1850, the severely damaged 808-tonne merchant ship the Admiral arrived in Melbourne disabled by a broken mast. Captain John Freyer, unable to locate adequate timber to repair the ship in the young city, headed to a mountainous region to its south-east and found “a forest of tree masts” that meant the Admiral could return to Britain laden with wool and tallow.
Yet Covid-19 has changed the equation, with more people willing to risk a lengthy commute if they can work from a forest home most of the time. A population that was once made up of farmers, hippies, greenies, bogans (Antipodeans with a predilection for heavy metal and vintage Holden cars) and tradies has become more professional in recent times, as large houses nestled at the end of dirt tracks have become much more desirable.
I spent my adolescence desperately planning to get out of the “hills” but each trip back, first from London and now from Sydney, has revealed how much of my identity is still tied up in the tall trees and eccentric lifestyle.
Visiting is a rewarding experience for those who have the time for a forest hike, a steam-train ride or a drive around roads so bendy that you feel like you are playing Mario Kart. Best to aim for the spring or summer, or autumn for a cooler walk — the hills can get very cold and wet in the winter, but it is the wind and the prospect of giant falling trees (the remnants of which litter the forest) that are the biggest hurdle. Just be careful to set the GPS to specific points in the Dandenong Ranges and not to the nearby conurbation of Dandenong, which is wild but not like the wilderness that towers above it.
If you’re taking kids up there, it can be fun to get them to count the steps (trade secret: it’s not a thousand), but resist the temptation to loudly play music when climbing up and down the trail lest you irritate everyone around you, including the parrots, kookaburras and echidnas.
The 1,000 Steps forms part of a memorial track commemorating the Australian soldiers who perished fighting in Papua New Guinea during the infamous Kokoda Trail campaign in the second world war. Bronze statues and plaques containing information about the conflict and the co-operation with native Papuans are located along the ascent.
The route takes in the Kokoda Memorial Wall, which pays tribute to Australian soldiers who fought and died in Papua New Guinea on the second world war’s Kokoda Trail campaign, and the Papuans who helped the troopsIt was trailing up and down the forested 1,000 Steps as a teenager that gave me a Teutonic-like desire to climb mounds, hills, volcanoes and mountains whenever I was within their vicinity. That culminated in a somewhat reckless midnight trek up to the apex of Santa Cruz in the Andes, which dwarf the Dandenongs more than tenfold in height.
If you’re put off by the procession of hikers heading up the steps, or want a tougher challenge, head to the Montrose Fire Trail on the other side of the mountain range. The ascent is 600m straight up and involves climbing over ground resembling a dried-out creek bed rather than a path. Care should be taken traversing the large rocky parts of the trail, but the steep climb is well worth it once you hit Burke’s Lookout, which on a clear day offers views over Melbourne and the bay.
How to get there
1,000 Steps: Mount Dandenong Tourist Road just off Burwood Highway (Route 26) at Upper Ferntree Gully.
Montrose Fire Trail: Glasgow Road/Sheffield Road off Mount Dandenong Tourist Road at the Canterbury Road (Route 32) end.
Sassafras and Olinda
Good for: Day-tripping, high teas, hairpin turns
Not so good for: Parking, hairpin turns
Directions
Most day-trippers and tourists who visit the Dandenongs will end up visiting the villages of Sassafras, Olinda or Kallista when driving around the hills. Clusters of fashion boutiques, selling everything from womenswear to possum socks, sit aside antiques shops, idiosyncratic arts and crafts stores and cafés that draw tourists like flies.
There is a strange stylistic inconsistency around these parts, where Tudor-style tea rooms that specialise in quaint “Devonshire” (not Cornish) cream teas sit around the corner from Bavarian-themed cake emporiums and modern cafés focused on sustainable and vegetarian fare.
Tudor-style tea rooms such as Miss Marple’s in Sassafras . . .
. . . specialise in Devonshire cream teas, perhaps accompanied by a pot of Yorkshire Gold
The best picks include Ripe in Sassafras (located next to the distinctive tea shop where I buy “billy tea” leaves), which has become an institution since it opened in 1999. Specialising in local produce and with little of the fuss or faux-grandeur of larger places, Ripe (open 8am–3pm Mon–Fri; 8am–4pm Sat–Sun) is a great place for either a meal (the oblong veggie burger or grilled barramundi fillet are recommended) or a cake and coffee (I’d go for the arty flourless orange cake over the hemp seed bar), but it might be best to book as it is often busy.
Flourless orange cake at Ripe in Sassafras
It’s often best to book at Ripe, a popular local spot since it opened in 1999
Proserpina Bakehouse, located back down the hill in the quieter Ferny Creek, is a newish addition to the Dandenongs culinary scene and does a roaring trade. The large space operates as a bustling café offering fancy cakes, gourmet pizzas, tarts and pasties using flour it has milled on site. The bakehouse (open 7am–4pm Weds–Mon) also operates as a delicatessen, selling wines from the nearby Yarra Ranges as well as condiments, cheeses and meats, albeit at steep prices. The staff are incredibly friendly, which helps offset some of the chaos of the unruly queues during its busiest times.
The Dandenong Ranges Botanic Garden is especially famed for the rhododendrons and . . .
. . . hydrangeas — as well as azaleas and camellias — abloom in its 40 hectares © Abigail Varney (2)
Olinda and Sassafras are good jumping-off points for forest hikes or visits to one of the many gardens in the region. The pick is the National Rhododendron Gardens, recently rebranded as the Dandenong Ranges Botanic Garden, which is set across 40 hectares and offers views over the Yarra Ranges wine country. Although the key floral attraction is the rhododendrons on display, as well as azaleas and camellias (peak times September and October), the gardens are wilder than you might expect and you’re never far from a view of an imposing mountain. I got hitched here, so it feels like a pretty special place.
One of the 92 sculptures in the William Ricketts Sanctuary © Anastasia Ika/AlamyThat said, the real star of the Dandenong Ranges is the William Ricketts Sanctuary. The sculpture park, situated in a glade on Mount Dandenong, offers a tranquil walk through fern-lined forest paths and exhibits the work of Ricketts, who focused much of his work on Aboriginal spirituality. There are 92 beautiful pieces dotted around the pathways, as well as a small gallery. The audio tour is recommended to learn more about his vision. Sadly, the site was damaged by a severe storm — a regular occurrence in the Dandenongs — and is unlikely to reopen until 2024.
How to get there
Mount Dandenong Tourist Road (Route 26) provides access to all these sites.
Lyrebirds/deep forest
Good for: Tall trees, dense forest hikes, wildlife
Not so good for: Watch carefully for spider’s skein when in the forest lest you get a faceful of cobweb, as well as its agitated resident
FYI: bring binoculars
Directions
I once had the pleasure of meeting Sir David Attenborough at a press function and told him that I was from the same forest as the superb lyrebird, which he had featured in his 1998 TV series The Life of Birds. Memories of the footage, filmed in the Dandenongs, of a male lyrebird performing note-perfect mimicry of other bird songs, car alarms and chainsaws enlivened Attenborough, who recalled the forest as well as the nearby Micawber Tavern pub in our brief discussion.
The clip remains popular online, and the lyrebird went viral once again last year when a captive one in Sydney imitated an evacuation drill.
The forest is home to the superb lyrebird, a note-perfect mimic of almost any sound it hears © Getty Images
The ancient bird, which appears on Australian 10c coins, takes its name from the male’s lyre-shaped tail rather than its ability to mislead predators about its identity. It is not as hard to spot as it once was in the Dandenongs, when predation by cats, dogs and foxes pushed it to the brink in the 1980s. Numbers have recovered due to conservation efforts. Venturing deep into the forest where they like to fossick for food in the damp fern gullies is the best bet if you want to see one.
There are a large number of substantial hikes through the Dandenongs that will take visitors into the wilderness where echidnas, wallabies and wombats also reside. The deeper you go in, the closer you will get to patches of cool temperate rainforest that have covered the region for 60mn years. Although bushfires have ravaged the forest on occasion, some of the tallest mountain ash trees in the remote gullies — which can grow to a height of over 100m — are now up to 250 years old.
Sherbrooke Falls is an easy 2.4km loop to a small cascade
Tree ferns along the Sherbrooke Falls trek © Abigail Varney (2)
Walks are well signposted as long as you stay on the marked trails, and the car parks on each site have detailed maps on display for peace of mind and in case the patchy phone reception spooks you.
The best short walk in the area is arguably the Sherbrooke Falls trek — a mostly flat 2.4km loop around a small cascade that is pleasant but no Niagara. It offers an easy entry into the forest without the need to scale large hills and can be completed in less than an hour. It is accessible from Sherbrooke Road between Kallista and Ferny Creek, which is bordered by mountain ash and makes for an excellent drive.
A longer and more intense walk is the 7km Eastern Sherbrooke Forest Walk, which incorporates a number of trails and involves, predictably, some tough ascents. It is best to start at Grants Picnic Ground in Kallista on Monbulk Road (C404), and follow the signs for the Lyrebird Track. Take the dense Hardy Gully Track and eventually you will end up on the Neuman Track, which you can follow around to eventually get back to Grants. The Paddy Track detour will take you to Selby, my hometown, and to the magnificent wooden Trestle Bridge where you can watch the local steam train (see below) hoot by if you time it right.
Wide paths in the forest are flanked by mountain ash and tree ferns — keep an eye out for echidnas, wallabies, wombats and lyrebirds © Abigail VarneyThese are some of the most beautiful walks in the area, where wide paths give way to clearings containing dead trees that look like modern sculptures before turning back into the deepest forest. It is easy to get lost — it is common to be asked by bug-eyed tourists for the quickest way back to the car park — but the signs will guide you back to Grants at regular intervals, even if you’ve taken a wrong turn.
Just don’t ask any of the birds for directions — some of them are lyres.
Puffing Billy
1 Old Monbulk Road, Belgrave VIC 3160
Good for: Kids, train enthusiasts, history, Dandenongs without the hiking
Not so good for: Those in a hurry
FYI: Check if it is running if it’s very hot, as the train won’t run if the fire rating is “extreme”
Website; Directions
If you ask most people what they associate with the Dandenong Ranges, it will probably be the Puffing Billy steam train that chugs its way through the forest and is a regular trip for schoolchildren across Melbourne.
The Puffing Billy steam train crossing the wooden Trestle Bridge © Abigail VarneyI had a more direct relationship with the train as it passed directly through my fenceless garden, meaning that tourists hanging their legs and arms out of the open sides of the train’s carriages would often spot me and wave excitedly at the local hillbilly. Novelty soon turned to irritation, so my brother and I, during our ratbag years, became quite skilled at hitting tourists with eggs as they slowly passed, unable to dodge the ovoid projectiles.
It was with some irony, then, that my first official ride on the train (I’d jumped on to the back of the last carriage for a free ride a few times) was for my wedding reception when, having spent a decade away in London, the novelty of travelling through the hills on a steam train had a strange appeal. Luckily, my suit was covered only in soot the next day and not egg yolk.
The narrow-gauge train line was originally established as a freight line in 1900 used to haul timber, fruit trees and potatoes from the region down into Melbourne, with meat, milk, mail on board. It operated until the 1950s, when a landslide buried the track and ended its life as an operating line.
All aboard: the station master rings his bell . . .
. . . at Belgrave station, from where Puffing Billy heads through the forest © Abigail Varney (2)
However, the affection that the public had for Puffing Billy — named after an older steam train located in a colliery near Newcastle upon Tyne — saved it as thousands of children turned up for one last ride on the beloved train, which thus proved its worth as a tourist attraction. The line was gradually restored by volunteers between the 1960s and 1990s to span 24km.
Its appeal goes beyond steam-train enthusiasts like Michael Portillo, who featured the railway line on his BBC television series, due to the beauty of the surroundings. The most frequent route from Belgrave to Emerald Lake passes over Trestle Bridge and through the forest and rests at a park where there is a children’s paddling pool and pedalos, as well as a newly built museum and café complex. It is roughly a three-hour round trip and costs A$61 per adult ticket or A$153 for a family ticket.
The train offers an easy way for people to experience the Dandenongs without the need for a car as Belgrave is connected to the metropolitan rail network.
How to get there
Car: Belgrave via Burwood Highway (Route 26). Train: Belgrave line from central Melbourne, which takes over an hour.
Do you have a favourite Melbourne getaway? Tell us in the comments
Follow FT Globetrotter on Instagram at @FTGlobetrotter
Cities with the FT
FT Globetrotter, our insider guides to some of the world’s greatest cities, offers expert advice on eating and drinking, exercise, art and culture — and much more
Find us in Melbourne, Hong Kong, Tokyo, New York, London, Paris, Rome, Frankfurt, Singapore, Miami, Toronto and Madrid
This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Nic Fildes
