Dandenong, Mornington Peninsular and Melbourne

Dandenong, Mornington Peninsular and Melbourne
Melbourne, Australia

Melbourne, Australia

log Victoria

After our careful planning to visit Tasmania during the best weather in February had gone a bit pear shaped, we were delighted to be back on the mainland so we could get rid of our jeans, trainers, jumpers, coats and hot water bottles and get back to enjoying the hot Australian sun. it seems however that winter had started to descend on Australia and gone were the hot 35 degree sunny days and balmy 28 degree nights. It looks like I am going to be getting more value out of my charity shop jeans than I thought.

Our first stop on the mainland was to backtrack a little to the places we didn’t have time to do before our boat to Tassie.

First up Dandenong. This was a bit of an odd place to stop but the campsite was cheap and it was a nice short drive from Melborne after the boat from Tassie. A bonus for me was that the camp site had a couple of friendly cats which always boosts its ratings in my books. Our first night we got La Toya set up and had dinner, made small talk with the crazy travelling salesman that was parked behind us and I headed off to the kitchen block to heat up my microwavable hot water bottle pillow thing. I saw something moving out of the corner of my eye and figured it must be one of the cats that I had seen earlier so I headed over and much to my surprise it was a huge possum, snaffling outside someone’s caravan. Usually possums about turn and vanish, but this possum seemed to take an interest in me and started to follow me back to the kitchen. I grabbed my hot water bottle and every time I stopped and turned around the possum was following me. Thankfully a resident on the camp site came out of the shower block just as I was passing and he informed me not to worry “that’s just Warwick”. My first time being stalked by a possum; Warwick the resident Possum. Awesome.

Dandenong is the home to the Dandenong Ranges and more importantly the Puffing Billy Steam Train. There had been a lot of fires in Victoria recently and often because of the dry weather the train has to run a diesel engine, but our luck was in and there was no fire ban the day we visited Puffing Billy so we got to enjoy him in all his puffing, smoking glory.

The line was opened in 1900 to serve the local farming and timber community. It stopped running in 1953 after a landslide blocked the line, and was formally closed in 1954. On 1 October 1955, the Puffing Billy Preservation Society was formed to keep the train running indefinitely as a tourist attraction.

A trip on Puffing Billy is a bit like going back in time, they even throw the Health and safety manual out the window and encourage you to sit on the window sill with your feet hanging over the edge to fully enjoy the ride. The view is beautiful, Billy goes up hill, down hill, over rickety wooden bridges and all the time spews smoke filled with bits of coal which cover you from head to toe. Needless to say we loved every second of it and highly recommend it to anyone.

After Dandenong we headed down to the Mornington Peninsular, this was a bit of a surprise trip for me planned by Tim. It was our anniversary during our visit and as a Birthday present which was the following week, Tim had booked us an Airstream Caravan for 3 nights on a beach front pitch on the Mornington Peninsular. Sadly the weather was not being kind, again and we had to call the owner to come and take down the awning as we were highly likely to blow into the ocean with it up. Mornington peninsular was beautiful and it is the weekend break and holiday hot spot for Melbournians, much like Noosa in Queensland, it is full of lovely restaurants and bars and boutique shops none of which we could afford to look in, eat in or drink in. However it was pretty cool having the coolest camper on the site, although I did feel a bit sad for little La Toya parked next to us looking a bit lonely. We had one awesome day trip to the Peninsular Hot Springs, where natural mineral thermal waters flow into an array of different pools, at different temperatures, some in caves, some at the top of a mountain with exquisite views over the peninsular. Sadly hot springs and cameras are not a good combination so we didn’t manage to take any photos but it was a beautiful place and we left soothed, relaxed and warm, for the first time in a while!!

Finally it was time to head to Melbourne, this long awaited spot which is such a favourite city for all Australians, particularly ones that have spent time in Europe so we were intrigued to see it for ourselves.

Like every other city, camping was not really practical so we found an Air BNB room with a guy called Ryan. He had great reviews, with his house being on a train line and having travelled extensively himself using AirBNB we were excited to meet him. He had left us the key so we could let ourselves in and get comfortable which was a great start and we set off straight away to explore the city.

There had been some breaking news in Australia the day before we arrived in Melbourne that the Bowen Big Mango, the first Big Thing that we found, had been stolen. Much to our amazement there it was in Melbourne. Seemingly a publicity stunt by Nando’s to launch their new mango and lime marinade, but it made our day and gave us an unexpected extra Big Thing photo.

Tim was so excited to have found the Bowen mango that one of his contact lenses popped out and left us with little option than to have a quick dinner at Nando’s whilst Tim did an excellent pirate impression squinting with one eye trying to see his dinner through the whole meal. Needless to say, he now carries spare contacts in his camera bag.

That evening we finally managed to meet our Super Host Ryan, Tim was super excited as Ryan is a sound engineer and works at all the big festivals and events around Oz. We immediately began to question Ryan’s reviews as a super host as after a quick hello, how are you, he ran off and hid in his bedroom for the next three days. We pretty much didn’t know if he was in or out, and quite frankly it didn’t matter to us, but we did feel a bit sorry for the poor guy hiding in his room. Our penultimate night Ryan did emerge from his room briefly to tell us that he was off to Perth so just to leave the keys on the side when we left. Result, our own private flat in Melbourne!

There was so much to see in Melbourne we decided to start with the obligatory Open Top Bus tour, a favourite method for us to get our bearings. The odd thing about this tour, was that it didn’t really take us anywhere that we wanted to go, so we just sat back and watched the world go by. One useful thing we did find on this tour was an advert for the All Star Pole Dancing final, how could we possibly resist attending that!

Our initial tour of Melbourne confirmed what everyone had told us, it was so European, a bit like London, Paris and Amsterdam all rolled into one. The other thing that we noticed was that Melbourne appears to be the centre of the universe for Hipsters. Literally every single person in Melbourne was trying to out cool the next with odd mismatching outfits, crazy crooked hair cuts, odd shoes and just generally everything that has been seen and done in Hoxton in London forever. I have to say people of Melbourne, I like you but it is a bit sad, catch up with the times; when everyone is trying so hard to be individual it kind of loses its impact!

Nights out for us have become something of a treat, generally the type of towns we stay in even the chippy shuts at 8pm, so to be in Melbourne we had to make the most of the action and bought tickets to a burlesque vampire show, Dracula’s Bloodbath. A dinner show where everything was themed even the dish my dinner came in! The toilets had mirrors with talking holograms that scared the life out of you when you are washing your hands, you entered the show via a mini ghost train with all the usual kitsch frights along the way. The show was suitably cheesy, with singing, dancing, contorting, laughing and of course a
bit of nudity to make it truly burlesque.

There is one place in Melbourne that everyone just has to visit. Pin Oak Court. Never heard of it, nope thought not, it is the real name of Ramsay Street! Even though I stopped watching neighbours about 20 years ago, how could I possibly miss out on a trip to Erinsbourough! Pin Oak Court, is actually just a normal cul-de-sac which happens to be a few minutes’ drive from Global Television Complex Studios where the rest of the set lives. Believe it or not people live in the houses and receive $14,000.00 per year to put up with the film crew when they need to do a scene outside the houses. All the internal and back yard scenes are now set at the studio.

Regardless of how long ago I stopped watching neighbours, being at the spot where the cricket scene from the opening credits was shot was epic! The studio tour was just as exciting, with Lassiter’s lake and Hotel, Harold’s Store and Toadfish’s Law practice. We were all like small children peeping over the walls into the houses which have now been built as part of the set.

The tour guide for the Neighbour’s tour was the most crazy, strange talkative Irish man you have ever met, but he totally made the tour. I am pretty sure that he could go on Mastermind answering questions about neighbours, he knows exactly who married who, who killed who, who got ran over, where and when and more importantly he has a mix tape of all the hits released by the Neighbours various stars over the years, and on our trip back to Melbourne played them to us and ended the tour with us singing Especially For You at the top of our voices at unsuspecting pedestrians whilst watching the best bits of Neighbours. Oh what a tour!! AMAZING!!!

That evening it was time for us to attend the Pole dancing show which we had randomly bought tickets for just days earlier, unsure what to expect we were a little taken back we arrived to find not a single man in attendance and women everywhere buying pole dancing clothes from the stalls in the foyer. We went in, got our seats and stocked up on wine and after talking to people sharing our table we quickly realised that Pole dancing is a massive keep fit hobby in Oz and we were almost definitely the only people there who were not part of a club supporting a performer. Not that we cared in the slightest, but it did make us a little hesitant to voice our opinions of any of the performers as we were quite likely to get a glass of wine thrown over us for supporting the wrong act. Some of the acts were much superior to others, but sadly it made little difference how skilled you were and more which club you were from as some of the best acts in our opinion got the worst response. With a train to catch we didn’t stick around for the results but when we looked them up later we were disappointed to see that none of our favourites won. The cut throat world of pole dancing hey, who would have thought!!

Our last day in Melbourne and we had to explore The Lanes, these little alleys some filled with small curiosity shops, some filled with boutique mini malls and others just filled with the smell of pee and spray paint. Can you guess which ones we spent our time in… yup the posh shops were passed by and we spent our afternoon breathing through our mouths to avoid the smell whilst dodging the Hipsters to take in the street art of the lanes.

The bright lights of the big city have been fun, but for now Melbourne it is time to move on….One of the most epic road trips and the one we have been most looking forward to awaits us,,, The Great Ocean Road, here we come!!