Mount Dandenong

Back in the day, we’d climb the Tourist Road with a thermos and a sense of purpose: fog on the wind, the distant toot of the Puffing Billy steam train that every weekend guide insists makes us quaint, and the faint moral superiority that comes with surviving the “brutal 1000 Steps,” as Concrete Playground once deadpanned.

Our weekend routine used to read like a travel column: queue (or pretend to queue) at Proserpina Bakehouse on 361 Mt Dandenong Tourist Road in Sassafras, meander past the ethical shelves of Olinda Collective at 540 Mount Dandenong Tourist Road, then get lost in the SkyHigh Mt. Dandenong experience — panoramic views, a giant maze and the smugness of knowing Melbourne is an hour’s drive away, as Broadsheet helpfully confirmed. If we were feeling very Dandenong, we’d haunt the Alfred Nicholas Memorial Gardens or the Dandenong Ranges Botanic Garden, and tiptoe through William Ricketts Sanctuary among those 92 hidden sculptures that Time Out waxed lyrical about.

There isn’t much petty council drama spelled out in the clippings — the nearest civic rollercoaster was a Broadsheet list that included us in a Yarra Valley Water precautionary water-quality warning. Yes, water warnings: the ultimate romantic subplot.

Who would hate it here? People who think an “airbnb with a fireplace” (hello, Coorabell Retreat and a few other setups Urban List peddled) means instant glam instead of firewood, fog and the occasional art-installation-that-ate-a-mansion (Rone’s Empire at Burnham Beeches made Concrete Playground’s list). Also, if you can’t tolerate tourist mazes, the 1000 Steps, and weekend walkers pointing at trees and saying “native flora,” this isn’t your jam.

Who would love it? Garden obsessives, hikers, anyone who wants William Ricketts’ moody sculptures in their Instagram feed, or people who treasure stories about knifemakers like Mathieu Dechamps setting up shop amid fell trees — Broadsheet’s little human-interest nugget. For years the local write-ups have been less about scandal and more about scenery, so if you live for ferns, waterfalls (Olinda Falls), and a hilltop that feels like a slow, leafy retreat from the city — well, we’ve been here all along, quietly smug and delightfully damp.