Puffing Billy and a Trivia Win!

Monday June 5th – Today we drove to Belgrave which is in the Dandenong Mountains and did some cane travel in rural environments. This means we had to walk on gravel roads without footpaths to locate our destination, a bus stop. We also made a quick stop to Grant’s Picnic ground which is the place in Sherbrooke forest where we fed the birds last weekend. We got some bird seed and this time the Cockatoos were all over us! They are feisty birds and one of them bit my ankle while another one grabbed Sue’s jacket sleeve to pull her arm closer to the table so he could eat out of her hand without getting on her arm! The rosellas kept landing on my head and one stayed on for quite a distance as I walked back to the car.
Afterwards we drove to a town called Emerald where we hopped on “Puffing Billy” for a ride back to Belgrave. Puffing Billy is a genuine relic of the more leisurely days. Billy is a historic steam train who still runs regularly in the mountain district it was built to serve at the turn of the century. The Railway is the sole survivor of four experimental lines used to develop rural areas in the early 1900's. Puffing Billy is now a major tourist attraction, its operation depending on hundreds of dedicated volunteers.
Jhaneen dropped us off and drove down to the trestle bridge to take our photo as we went by. The bridge is the lowest point on the line and is 85.3 meters long (280 feet) and 12.8 meters high (42 feet). One of the funny things about ‘Billy’ is that kids (of all ages) are allowed to sit on the railing on the side of the train and dangle your legs out. Of course, we were happy to be part of the kids group and dangled our legs as well.
For lunch we went to Miss Marple’s tea room in a town called Sassafras. Miss Marple is a character created by Agatha Christie and the tea room has lots of Miss Marple’s memorabilia. The food was tasty but the best part was drinking Devonshire tea and eating scones with home made jam and “lashings of freshly whipped cream”! Delightful!
This evening we again went to trivia night at the Skinny Dog. Laura joined us and we were stoked when we were in first place at the end of round one! We didn’t do as well in round two but managed to come in second place overall, winning a $15 voucher. We felt so smug and smart!