The Dandenongs Saturday Sept 12, 2009

On Friday Danielle and Zane invited me for dinner and drinks.  I spent the night (in my own wing of their house) and on Saturday morning we went on a road trip to the Dandenongs just north east of Melbourne.  Before we left Danielle put out some bird seed to see if the rainbow lorikeets would come and feed. Well they did and boy were they beautiful.

Rainbow Lorikeets 

Our first stop was at Grant's Picnic in the Dandenong Ranges National Park to feed the Crimson Rosellas.  Zane and Danielle had bird seed which they happily shared with me.  Danielle had me a bit freaked out because the last time she was there feeding the birds a cockatoo bit her in the hand.  As soon as I had food in my hand birds were all over me and I got pretty spoked.  But the longer I was there the calmer I felt.   I was visited by parrots, cockatoos, and rosellas.

Me and the some of the rosellas.

Zane and the rosellas.

Danielle and the rosellas.

A parrot that Danielle fed but it quickly made its way up into the tree.

Once we finished feeding the birds we visited the gift shop before moving on.  Our next stop was at the top of Mount Dandenong, the Sky High Mount Dandenong .  Unfortunately the sky wasn't all that clear so the view shots I got weren't as good as they could have been.  If you look closely though you can see the Melbourne skyline in the far distance (you might want to double click it to actually see anything).

While on the top of Mt. Dandenong we did a little hike through a forest, and we walked through a beautiful garden. Below is me on a bridge in the garden.

By this time in the day we were getting hungry.  We had thought we would each lunch at the top of the mountain but when a basic hamburger was $22 we figured we could go else where.  We had a quick stop in the village of Mt. Dandeong before stopping for lunch in the little town of Olinda.  We enjoyed a delicious lunch and snooped around Olinda for a while.  While there we stumbled on to this very interesting tree.  The branches grew all kookie.

The Crazy Tree

From Orlina we headed to Sassafras to snoop around a bit before heading back to Montmorency where Zane and Danielle live.

Sassafras

Zane and Danielle dropped me off at their local train station and I headed home.  It was surprisingly warm when I got off the train and instead of waiting for the bus I walked the 2.5 kms.  Apparently it was 30c this evening even though it was no where near that warm while we were in the Dandenogs.  It makes me wonder what type of weather I have in store for me.

As a side, HAPPY BIRTHDAY SUE!  I know it's a big one for you and I'm sorry I couldn't be there to celebrate it with you.

And the best news of all.... six more sleeps until my friends Tammy and Nancy B come to visit ME!!!  I can't tell you how happy I'll be to have them with me and to be on SCHOOL HOLIDAYS!!! Five more go to work days and then it's SPRING BREAK!!