Lane's Ramblings

Last Sunday I wanted to get out to the wild places of Victoria, at least get an idea of what I had to work with. So I headed east towards Dandenong Ranges National Park, which is the closest national park to Melbourne. It has mountains, trails, forests. I didn't plan to do much hiking, mostly driving, gathering information for future trips. What I found was a better understanding of the land and roads, some places that I'd like to visit soon, some great running trails, and some good mountain biking trails.















My first stop was about 40km away and was rather busy with tourists and I decided to take a bit of a hike up the hill, which ended up to be a long hike and quite steep. And what did I keep thinking? "I can't wait to come back here to run up this thing." There were quite a few birds up there, including one that sounded like a monkey, and it was very peaceful. I will be going back for some day trips once my hiking equipment gets here.


















From there I drove through the small towns on top of the mountains. I then stopped at this place called Sky High Something or other. It had a view, you could see the city, a restaurant, some other stuff but it pretty much blew. What else did it have? An entrance fee. So I pretty much paid 4 bucks to use the bathroom.

Next came Mt Donna Buang, on the way up I found a rain forest walkway that had quite a few old growth trees, which were huge.























And now it was time to test the Pulsar and head up to the top of Mt Donna Buang (1250m) - otherwise known as the Mountain of Surprises (I'm not sure why but that's what the sign told me). The top of the mountain is the closest place to Melbourne that gets snow, which sounds promising to me. Looks like a possibility for snowshoeing next winter. They also had a viewing tower at the top. I've run into a lot of these in the White Mountains and I've always had a lot of trouble with them as I'm afraid of heights. But I've worked at it and this one I got all the way to the top with no problems at all - and it even had gratings for the stairs and floor.

Unfortunately, this weekend will be staying around the city looking for an apartment and taking care of other things. I think next weekend I'll venture further out, hopefully I'll find some higher mountains or some new beaches or some other natural wonder. Let's hope the Pulsar can bring me back...