Day Trip to the Dandenong Ranges

Happy Wednesday!

A few weekends ago on Australia Day, Tj and I took a nice day trip. We had a few places in mind, so we packed a beach bag and sunscreen and jumped in the car without knowing where we were going. We decided to check out the Dandenong Ranges National Park. This park is known for its Mountain Ash trees and fern gullies and it is a great place to hike. It's only about an hour's drive from Melbourne, which is perfect for a day trip.

Our first stop was a lookout. It was pretty hazy that day, so we could kind of see the outline of building in Melbourne, but it wasn't as impressive as we'd hoped.

There were two hikes we could do. One would take a few hours, and the other was a short 15 minutes. Now because we didn't know where we were going when we got in the car, I wasn't exactly dressed for hiking. I had on a dress and flip-flops. I thought we were going to end up at the beach lol. So we went for the short hike.

The trees were amazing. So tall! And some of the trunks were blackened like they had been burned, maybe in a forest fire? We were enjoying our walk when the trail ended really suddenly. It wasn't even a 15-minute hike, it was maybe five minutes and then a hike up a hill to a parking lot. But we did see a wild wallaby! It was hopping along so close to us. It stopped and hid in the trees until we passed. Definitely one of the highlights of my day although in hindsight we probably would have chosen the longer hike.

We stopped in the small town of Sassafras for lunch. We weren't ready to go home yet so we looked up more hikes in the area. We found an easy one nearby that was about 30 minutes and was supposed to take us to a waterfall!

This part felt like we were in Jurassic Park. It was just so different than anything I've ever seen before.

The waterfall was pitiful. It was hardly a creek, but maybe we are just visiting at the wrong time of year. It was still a nice little way to end our afternoon. Then we were headed back to Melbourne to watch the women's finals in the Australian Open.

Tj and I are definitely trying to enjoy the Australian summer. After we went on our day trip with Dave and Lauryn to the Mornington Peninsula we were inspired to get out of the city more and explore.

Now I'm off to get ready for bed! It's Tuesday night and I signed Tj and me up for a 5:30 am class at the gym tomorrow morning! I'm tired already.

Have a great week :)