Blue Dandenongs, Puffing Billy and the Yarrow Valley

And, it’s on to Melbourne!  Our second stop in Australia was Melbourne.  We visited the city sights in Sydney, and for a change of pace, we took it to the country for this port of call.

Melbourne is the second largest city in Australia, second only to Sydney….for now.  At one point in the past, Melbourne was the largest city, but then lost that title to Sydney.  However, due to the population growth in Melbourne, they believe they will once again regain the title over the next few years. Our port in Melbourne, in Phillip Bay, was in the 4^th largest bay in the world.  (Excuse the morning sunspots, please!)

We began our excursion for today with a bus ride out to the Belgrave Train Station to get on Puffing Billy, a charming little steam engine, narrow gauge locomotive.  Thank goodness for us, we were able to ride the “steaming” Billy.  When the danger of brush fires (called wildfires back home) is too high, they can’t use the coal burning Billy, and have to use an electric engine instead.  I really love the front facing image I got of Billy – he’s really steaming!

We began our journey at the Belgrave Station.  One of the interesting things about the entire Puffing Billy operation is that it is run and staffed by volunteers (about 850).  The original line (prior to the volunteer effort) began in 1900 and ran until 1953, when a landslide wiped out a portion of the tracks.  However, there was enough local interest in continuing the history of Billy to form the Puffing Billy Preservation Society.  After much work and the blessing of the governmental powers that be, Puffing Billy again began operations to the Menzies Station in 1962.  Services were expanded to other stations in 1965, 1973 and finally was completed to the Gembrooke Station in 1998.

A narrow gauge railroad is one that runs on a narrower track than typical trains.  Narrow gauge was what was used in the early days of railroads.  I believe the reason for the narrow gauges was that they were good at tackling the mountain climbs back in the early 1900s when they were first put into use.  It was very cool to be able to stand and sort of lean out of the open sides of the car to get a great view of what lay ahead, and to give you an idea of how close to the vegetation we were.

The Blue Dandenongs are the rolling hills that are part of the Blue Mountains of Australia.  If the skies hadn’t been so hazy in Sydney, we would have been able to see the mountains from there.  But, here, we were right in them!  The forest did have some flowers blooming – we traveled by them too fast (about 35 – 40 mph) to really get a good look, but they sort of reminded me of calla lilies.  Another interesting thing was that the forest consisted of traditional trees, but also of fern trees!  I’m used to ferns being a sort of low growing plant, but here, they can be low, but also grow into trees.

After our train ride on Puffing Billy thru the Blue Dandenongs, we moved on to the Yarrow Valley, a big wine region in Australia.  There are a number of wineries there, and we had tastings at three of them!

They do seem to like white wines here.  Our first tasting was of what they called a white pinot.  I always thought white pinot was pinot grios, but they didn’t call it that.  Apparently, this is made from the pinot noir, but is “unstable”, in that some years it’s red, and some, like this vintage, it’s white!

The wine country views were certainly a match for the lovely tasting wines, and we did find a pinot noir (red in color) that we particularly  liked, and decided to take that one back to the ship to enjoy!

Enjoy!