Australia Actually: Dandenong ranges

The time we almost got lost!

by Chelseawroteit - 6:08 AM

December 24, 2014

It's supposed to be Christmas, but it doesn't quite feel like it. First of all.. the sun sets around 8 p.m, and it's +30 out here. It's the first time i'm celebrating christmas in the summer! Jesse and I are leaving for our last adventure in 2 days. We're almost done packing. Today was a free day and i've been wanting to visit the William Ricketts Sanctuary for a month now. So we took the train to Croydon and caught the 688 bus.

No one mentioned how windy the road was! Also, we hopped on a bus that didn't stop at the sanctuary. We got off the stop closest to the area, and since the journey planner said it was only gonna be a 6-minute walk, we thought we'd ace it. Or wing it.

The moment we jumped off the bus, we discovered that 4G did not reach this far into the forest and that we were a little screwed. Apart from the bus stop, there wasn't even a sidewalk to walk through. I shivered as I heard a car accelerate behind my right ear. It was so close I could've elbowed it. CRAY CRAY.

Dora explorer for the day! I was feeling confident because my water bottle was full and I had a bag of nuts and some hand sanitizer. LOL. Also, I carried the camera so just in case something happened to us, all the evidence would be recorded there.

Luckily, we bumped into a local (the ONLY other human being in the vicinity at the time). We thought it was strange and perfect that he decided to step out of his house the exact moment J and I were wandering across it.

He told us a sneaky way of getting to the sanctuary. It was actually similar to the one the journey planner mentioned, except it involved a secret detour which then lead to kind-of trespassing into someone's property and getting barked at by a massive dog.

Pretty bunch of flowers we saw while taking the back route :)

Another dodgy sign.

"you've walked too far to turn back now."

After escaping the hounding dog, we descended on to the main road! It took us another 20 minutes to get to the actual spot. I must've woken up on the right side of the bed, because I normally wouldn't have the patience for this. Finally, we started seeing people and it was assurance that we'd found the right place.

the view as you enter the park

So whimsical! It somehow reminds me of Peter Pan and the lost boys... and a lot of other things. They had videos of W.R (the artist) while he was still alive. We even got a chance to step into his cottage and peek at his work station. They left his bed and a few of his clothes on display. To be honest, I left the place feeling a little haunted.