By Tanya Steele
The Dandenong Ranges offer endless variety for adventure and discovery and one way to explore them is with pedal power.
A young family had recently a great cycling journey over the school holidays, riding the Eastern Dandenong Rail Trail between Clematis and Cockatoo.
Parent Annie and her children Katie, 12 and Hugo, 9, drove out of the city to take a two day bike trek along the trail to get out into nature.
“if I didn’t plan to get us out of the house and doing some kind of adventure, we would be home the whole holidays,” she said.
The family had never ridden the trail before and found it through an online search – the 15km ride was filled with an abundance of nature and sights, offering the riders many chances to stop along the way.
Annie said she figured it would be a nice bike-packing adventure which wasn’t too long – and the ‘up and back’ journey style made things a bit more fun. They began their ride in Clematis and finished in Gembrook, staying overnight and meeting hill friends for dinner.
“Gembrook had great accommodation options and we had fun staying out there,” she said.
It wasn’t all easy – the trail is tough at times and Annie said there were moments when the kids had to persevere, the payoff was the spectacular scenery as they were riding.
The family had ridden the 15km distances before but Annie said the ‘down then up’ of the ride was recognising the “I’ve had enough of this moment” and pushing through it.
“It’s a short ride but there is a mental challenge to it as well, especially for kids,” she said.
Stops also included necessary samples from bakeries in the area and the ride took around four hours each day.
Having the train go past while riding was great fun and was a real highlight for the bikers.
“We were lucky with Puffing Billy going past us both days,” Ms Gehling said.
Annie said she also really enjoyed the moments her kids took a minute to absorb the nature around them.
“There were sections of the track where the trees were arched over in an arbour and my kids really appreciated the beauty of the forest, ‘they said, that’s beautiful’,” she said.
Other highlights included the much loved fairy doors in Wright Forest, Cockatoo and the Poem Tree in Gembrook. The fairy doors appeared sometime in 2018 and offer the young and young at heart a little joy in opening the tiny doors to see what might be inside.
The Poem Tree began in lockdown and was created out of an abandoned hollow, allowing passers-by to either leave their own poem or stop and have a read – young writer Shaminka Fernando began the concept with her brothers. The tree can be found along Gembrook’s rail trail walking path and anyone and everyone is welcome to add their own little poem or rhyme at any time.
The family headed back along the rail trail the next day and made it back to Clematis taking in the spectacular scenery from a different direction.
The trail can be done as a whole or in parts and Annie is glad they came out of the city to have a school holiday adventure in the Dandenong Ranges.
“There’s a lot to be said for going on an adventure on your own steam,” she said.
