In the middle of April, we drove up to the Dandenong Ranges for half a day. We saw a lot of really amazing autumn foliage, athough we were still too early or too late for many trees.
Our first stop was the George Tindale Memorial Parks. There’s a giant rock perched on top of another rock, and you can actually push the top rock so it (very slowly) spins! T shocked the unsuspecting me when he gave a mighty push and it started moving.
Because the back of my jumper was floral, we tried to see if I could outdo the gardens.
The unassuming clouds in the sky suddenly turned into angry dark clouds. The sunshine went away and the skies poured heavily for a good twenty minutes. Luckily we made it to the car in time, and waited in the car for the rain to ease. We then drove a few minutes to Alfred Nicholas Memorial Gardens, which we had visited two years ago during autumn. It was incredibly foggy and wet now, but at least there was only drizzle for the rest of the day.
We were definitely too early for the lake, which is surrounded by golden leaves at the right time in autumn. I distinctly remember that two years prior, we were too late and all the trees had lost their leaves.
Next we drove ten or so minutes to the National Rhododendron Gardens, which we had visited the prior year but during spring.
The above totally reminded me of three woolly mammoths!
The cherry tree grove was also really beautiful, with the path lined on either side by a long row of trees starting to turn orange. We had visited this park primarily to view the cherry blossoms last spring, but had failed miserably to visit at the right time (we were way too late) and only had naked branches to observe.
T took a lot of sneaky photos of me (probably to entertain himself while patiently waiting for me taking photos) that he’s very amused by. He mentioned that while carrying the bright blue umbrella, I contrasted really nicely against the surroundings (it wasn’t even my umbrella, I swapped my smaller black umbrella with him!). This will be T’s first and definitely not last contribution to the blog.
