{"id":21833,"date":"2016-06-20T03:32:04","date_gmt":"2016-06-19T19:32:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=21833"},"modified":"2017-02-25T00:08:43","modified_gmt":"2017-02-24T16:08:43","slug":"melbourne-day-7-dandenong-ranges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2016\/06\/20\/melbourne-day-7-dandenong-ranges\/","title":{"rendered":"Melbourne – Day 7 – Dandenong Ranges"},"content":{"rendered":"

For our two kids at least, the day they were most looking forward to ever since we talked about the itinerary was the Puffing Billy Train ride, included in our third and last day tour for Day 7. The historic steam train is run and lovingly maintained by a team of professional staff and also a member society comprised of hundreds, and who dress up and turn the place to look and feel like that of a 19th century steam train setting.<\/p>\n

The Train ride sits inside the Dandenong Ranges<\/strong>, a group of four hills that are pretty near Melbourne itself – just 35km away and slightly less than an hour away – unlike the other two tours, you can’t just zip along the free way at 100km\/h to get to the destination since you’re really traveling through Melbourne suburbs. Lots of day tours operate out of Melbourne to bring visitors to the Ranges, and after spending a day here with the afternoon at Healesville Sanctuary, our summary is this: the Puffing Billy ride is great, the Ranges are beautiful, wineries a must if you a wine connoisseur, but skip the Sanctuary unless you have kids and haven’t visited any other wildlife park (more on that in the next post).<\/p>\n

The Ranges are filled with towering Eucalyptus<\/span> trees that rise as high as you can see – your neck muscles will get a good workout – and form quite a majestic sight as we traveled through the Dandenong Ranges National Park. Our first stop was the Grants Picnic Ground<\/strong>, a small stop where were there Cockatoos aplenty which you can feed by purchasing bird seed at the nearby souvenir shop. Unlike Hawdon Avenue though, these fellows are quite a bit wilder, larger, no less brave, and can scratch. In fact, the guides specifically advised visitors not to feed the birds out of their hands, instead providing metallic trays and bowls for that. The souvenir shop also sells the usual gifts and memorabilia<\/span>, which unlike the usual gift shops, were priced quite reasonably.<\/p>\n

It was another 10 minutes ride from Grants Picnic Ground to the Belgrave Station, the start point of our ride on the Puffing Billy Train<\/strong> ride. The train tracks actually run for a bit of distance – and will seem even longer as the train coasts along at a leisurely 15-20km\/h. Our tour offered what is largely a taster for a 30 minute ride from Belgrave to Menzies Creek Stations, which is about sufficient for you to get a feel of the ride, though the later stops seem a lot more scenic and could be worth the additional expense and self-arrangement.<\/p>\n

One of the key highlights for the ride of course is that you can sit on the carriage ledge and let your legs dangle right out. It might sound dangerous, but it’s perfectly safe for adults, and even Hannah could manage – though we had to keep an eye out for her at all times and ensure she didn’t slip off the train. Peter got to try it too with Ling holding onto him from behind, though the open weather was likely too cold for him to enjoy it much!<\/p>\n

Lunch was Roast at the Fergussion Winery and Restaurant<\/strong>, a small family-owned and run winery and that didn’t seem as commercialized as some of the other wineries. Lots of signs on the vineyards requesting that visitors do not touch the plants, as diseases and viruses could apparently be passed along – from humans to the plants that is! The rose bushes planted on the edge of the vineyards are apparently specifically to help with that, since viruses will attack those first before the vineyards themselves, and provide at least some heads-up warning for farmers to react.<\/p>\n

\"The
The cafe and souvenir shop at Grants Picnic Ground.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Breakfast
Breakfast for the Cockatoos.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Arrrrrrhh!
Arrrrrrhh! All Ling needs is an eye patch!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The
The music man who kept train riders entertained while waiting for their rides.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Train
Train tickets for four.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Train
Train leaving!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Feet
Feet out on the train!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Mommy
Mommy holding onto Peter – otherwise he’d slip off the train ledge!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Menzies
Menzies Creek – the station stop where we got off after the 30 minute ride.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Fergussion Winery and Restaurant<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

More in the next post: the Yarra Valley Chocolaterie & Ice Creamery and Healesville Sanctuary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For our two kids at least, the day they were most looking forward to ever since we talked about the itinerary was the Puffing Billy Train ride, included in our third and last day tour for Day 7. The historic<\/p>\n

Read More Melbourne – Day 7 – Dandenong Ranges<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21844,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[573,575,567,568,566],"class_list":["post-21833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-traveling","tag-fujifilm-x70","tag-melbourne-2016","tag-12-40mm","tag-40-150mm","tag-e-m1","wpcat-17-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/blog-2016-melbourne-day7-FUJA3198-puffing-billy.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}