We were spoilt by Rhonda and Gary who took us out to enjoy the surrounding area.
In no particular order here is a snapshot of those places:
The Dandenongs. In the little 'village' of Sassafras there is an absolute gem of a place, "Miss Marple's Tea Rooms". Not only is the building wonderful, the staff are delightful, the decor is splendid (the Miss Marple depicted is the iconic Margaret Rutherford) and the food is to die for!!
If you really want to pig out eat a dessert yourself, otherwise share with a friend.
Miss Marple's doesn't advertise, her reputation and word of mouth are all she needs. To get a seat without waiting for a table we suggest you get there before 11.30am
Next door is a Tea shop - which is just that - a shop that sells tea and it has the largest range of teas and the biggest range of teapots that I've seen.
The town of Belgrave is home of The Puffing Billy Railway.
We were dropped off by Rhonda and she kindly collected us at the end of the run, at Lakeside.
Custom has it that the children all sit on the window ledges and dangle their legs over the side of the carriage. We obliged, but only for the photo, it was too uncomfortable.
The 2 carriages next to us were full of Japanese school children and they rode all the way on the windowsill (they very sensibly removed their shoes!).
The scenery was stunning. I'd say that it was up there with the White Horse and Yukon Railroad in Alaska. The wooden trestle bridges and winding track made for great photos, and the amazing Dandenongs provided a beautiful background.
In this photo the person in red, with the blue car is Rhonda, waiting to wave at her tourist group!
It was over all too soon and it was time to get in to see more of this truly beautiful place.
St Kilda:
St Kilda is a beach side suburb at the end of the no 16 tram. We had a lovely long tram ride and then walked along the the street, resisting the magnificent cakes on offer and then had a burger for dinner, which we took down to the beach to eat sitting on the wall of the esplanade.
Point Cook. RAAF Museum. (Anyone not interested in planes can scroll through this).
We discovered that Gary loves planes, and so it wasn't hard to persuade him to take us out to Point Cook, west of Melbourne. This is where the first Australian flying school started in 1912.
It was a brilliant day out, the museum consisted of a very, very good museum building, then we were able to view the work being done in the restoration hangar and then there were 2 hangars with more planes, some of these were the ones that they fly on their 'flight days' (Tue. Thurs. and Sun.)
This is the Walrus which came back from Antarctica
And here is the Jindivik.
Yarra Valley and Hills:
This area was the scene of those devastating fires a few years ago, now the towns in the area have rebuilt and are asking people to visit their communities. There was a time to stay away and let the people recover but now it's time to help them by visiting. We were chauffered up to the town of Marysville, where we all found a book we wanted in the op shop. There was another 'tea' shop and a nice little antiques and collectables shop.
Lunch was at the local bakery (more splendid cakes to tempt us).
It is chilling to see the burnt trees covering the hillside, but life is returning, there is a lot of regrowth on the forest floor.
The Acheron Way is a fantastic winding road from Marysville to Warburton, we had the road to ourselves and enjoyed the amazing stunning scenery. The trees must be at least 30 metres tall.
Just outside Warburton we stopped to explore 'The Rainforest Gallery', in the Mt Donna Buang National Park.
The tree top walk may not be in the same league as those in Walpole or the Otways but the peaceful small platform at 15metres above the ground and the forest floor walkway made us both decide that the answer to our question at Kennett River ("can it get any better?") would have to be YES!
We then ended the afternoon with tea, scones, jam and cream by the banks of the Yarra River in Warburton, followed by an icecream!!
All good things come to an end, and it's time to say 'a bientot' to Melbourne and sail to Tasmania, but that will be another story.
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