Sunday asked for a nice day out so Arno came up with the idea to go to the Dandenong Ranges. To be honest I hadn’t even heard of it. It’s a rainforest-like national park about an hour drive from Melbourne. Once there you could simply keep on driving upwards so we did as we didn’t really did our research, meaning we were hoping to just stumble upon something great. 

Luckily, that happened! Because once we could drive no further we were at the entrance of the Dandenong Sky Mount, sounds fancy enough! This seemed to be a restaurant and platform overlooking Melbourne and its surroundings. What a stunning view at the skyscrapers and the beach not much further.. There were also some other small activities like a maze, yet I’m the last person on earth to ever pay for something that will make me feel trapped between bushes. (Honestly like losing my mind..). The park also had a wishing tree and a wishing well so obviously I wished as hard as I could that I would start making millions. (Shit, bad luck because I told you now right? Well ok faith, how about 50K a month, pretty please?)

After the top of the mountain we drove back down, looking for the Puffing Billy a.k.a. the steam train. After a 40 minute drive downwards I directed us towards a place along the rail, or so the website said. Unfortunately there was no rail in sight so 80 useless kilometers later we were down again and Arno found the lookout for the steam train. Turns out, I don’t really master the Google skills, yet I did find that luckily we would have 1 more chance to spot a steam train as it came by. Some viewers came and left again so my hopes weren’t that high, still I wanted to prove that I could actually find some info in the internet.

And there it was, that sound that can only mean one thing; “Phoooo Phoooo” (as I have no clue how to write down a steam engine sound) The Puffing Billy was about to pass us, we were being ready with 2 cameras and a drone to capture this really cool sight! Buuuuut once it has passed Arno started to freak out because he realized he didn’t press the record button on neither the camera nor the drone.. Poor thing, he was devastated about it for hours, we even actually considered to go back the next day to film those 2 minutes again. (Luckily we didn’t because 3 days later when editing, he noticed that the drone actually had the recording after all!)

We had dinner and then Arno wanted to go Pinterest-hunting, it’s my new term for trying to make the same picture as one you find on Pinterest. Golden hour treated us well because when we arrived at the Melbourne Star, everything looked gorgeous. Ok, a few clouds would have been nice.. Anyway we started walking around as we saw this awesome photo of a wooden bridge next to the Melbourne Star, on the foreground of some Melbourne skyscrapers. We walked and walked, even asked some walkers-by but the bridge nor the angle was to be found. We gave up but decided to stroll a little further towards the water. Hence totally by accident we spent the sunset at The Docklands, for people from Antwerp, you could compare this to Het Eilandje (the lovely place where my parents live). Some gorgeous and modern buildings around a small yacht-harbour with a view to the very cool Bolte bridge. Yup if I’m earning my millions, I’ll get ourselves a spot just right there. 😉 What an awesome place to end up and eventually end this day, a day well spent!