Seven Super Shots: Let the Pain Begin

Black Swan, Albert Park Lake

Right. Where have I been? Well, I've been pretty run down for the last few weeks with some sort of bug. I told my doctor it was clearly a case of Malaria which I've diagnosed myself online. Funnily enough she didn't believe me. Hang on, surely the internet isn't wrong? Oh yeah, by the way, the photo above has nothing to do with the following post. I like to start off an entry with a picture and I found this one of a swan at Albert Park Lake and decided it was my quintessential swan image. I'm afraid I'll never take a better swan photo.

Anyway, since I've been dying I haven't had a chance to do much walking. Instead Red (hey, that rhymes) over at 'Amazing Australian Adventures' volunteered me for a sort of blogging chain letter called 'Seven Super Shots'. It appears to have been started by a mob called 'Hostel Bookers'. I've had a look at their website and they seem legitimate. Maybe. Then again, they could be a front for a Colombian drug cartel for all I know.

So, the story is seven photos with a theme. Now, as a bloke who constantly lives on the edge I've changed the rules slightly. It's now officially called, 'Eleven Photos' and the original idea is to have pictures of grandeur which will sell the blog with image magnificence. Being the wild man though, I've decided to go with a bunch of plain old pictures, but fasten your seatbelts as I'm going with cutting edge descriptions. So, take your pants off and grab the Doritos as I begin.

A photo that...takes my breath away:

Winter at Kapooka, 1983.

Take my breath away? Well, where I'm about to go regarding this photo is pretty obvious, but I'm going to do it anyway. First of all I need to set the scene. I'm 19 years old and this is in the final week of basic training in the Army at Kapooka in New South Wales. It's also June which is mildly chilly and not far off dawn.

There's a painful thing called the Battle Efficiency Test (BET) which consists of a 15 km run with a time limit of two hours. Not bad hey? The trouble is it included rubbish like in the photo above. This particular obstacle was called the 'bear pit'. I've no idea why, but the catch is the picture doesn't show I still had a lot more sinking to do before I hit the bottom. I remember being boiling hot from running and jumping into this absolutely freezing water which caused my testicles to launch from ground level to the destination of being suspended from my mouth. There you go. It was always going to be that joke wasn't it?

A photo that...makes me laugh or smile:

The other day I was perusing my complete nightmare of images stuck on various hard drives when I came across a folder marked 'Phillip Island 2008'. I scrolled through the pictures until I came across these two. I had no idea that my son Ben had done this to the photos, but I can say it made me chuckle. He informed me the alteration occurred on the same Phillip Island trip as he was "bored out of my brain". We stayed a few times at a holiday house there, but it didn't have any internet and as a total package a really crap TV as well. I guess this is not what you want when you're 13 years old and as a result shenanigans occurred to the odd picture.

 A photo that...makes me dream:

This is a night shot that was also taken at Phillip Island and it appears to be a haunted house. This is the crap I dream about. Is there any chance of having a good nights sleep this year?

A photo that...makes me think:

I've gone for a 'ye olde' shot from the 1950's which was taken in England. I've seen it before, but it always makes me a little sad when I look at it as everyone in the photo has passed away. It's the Evans family and my mother Winifred is fourth from the left. They were one of those tough old English families that lived through World War Two and experienced things in their youth which I've never had to face.

On the far left is mums sister, Molly who was fantastic aunty. Loving and active, she would take me on trips when I was a boy to different parts of the south coast of England. She had her own demons though that was never discussed. At about 18 years of age, she dated a pilot from the RAF. He was killed early in the war and she never dated another person for the rest of her life until dying five years ago in her 80's. Molly remained active to the end and I have a photo of her on my mantelpiece which she captioned 'August 2000 in the Lothian Hills, Scotland'. She has a beaming smile and there's nothing around her other than a vast, rolling landscape.

Mums mother is second from left and her brother, Bert next to her. Who's Bert? No idea really as I never met the bloke even whilst living in England. He became the principal of a school over there, but I've no idea of the name. He's more known for a lifetime of being a 'pants man'. He certainly chalked up a few weddings and the odd mistress along the way. He also died only a few years ago and I still hadn't met him.

Mums father on the far right was a medic in the British Army during World War One. What did he see?  I guess lots and to top it off he was gassed as well. I can imagine that's not the greatest thing to live with for the rest of your life.

My mum? Well, she lived through the blitz in London during the Battle of Britain, so her youth was pretty hectic as well. The rest of her life though was blighted by schizophrenia and it's hard to describe what it's like to be with a person suffering from that. Not the greatest, but she lived with it as long as I can remember before passing away in 2006. Mum was pretty artistic and always maintained her family was related to the writer George Eliot. Was it true? I've no idea, but maybe I should look into that one day?! What more can I add? Lots, but this spiel for this particular photo has to end somewhere.

A photo that...makes my mouth water:

With that caption, it should be a food photo shouldn't it? Not for this wild man though. In walking I have a soft spot for two things. Feathers and water. How good is this? It combines the two! This was taken on the edge of Blue Lake near Mount Kosciuszko. Gleaming with reflected light, covered in water droplets and a colourful green to top it off. How could your mouth not water looking at this?

What? Another photo? My other soft spot when walking is a nice leaf on the ground. It's even better if the area has tannin darkened water about. This picture has the complete combo. Taken on the path through the Otways on the Great Ocean Walk between Eliot Ridge and Blanket Bay, this is still one photo I can't stop looking at. The colours! The reflected light! The black water! Will it ever stop????!!!!

A photo that...tells a story:

Yep, let's get morose again. This is a gravestone at the historic cemetery at Steiglitz. That whole area is a great spot to walk in and even better is this cemetery. I love an old cemetery which goes hand in hand with my fascination with death. Pretty cheery, huh?! Well, who doesn't think about it as you get older?

First of all, I found this one of the more tragic headstones I've seen in a while. Four children that died in their infancy? Did they have more or just give up? It goes back to that time in life where it was an achievement to live past childhood. If you survived you had a chance for a long life. That's pretty hard to imagine these days with our level of health, but the gravestone above tells a story that interests me.

Oh yeah, back to death again. What's after death? Bright shiny lights, people in white outfits?! My theory is this. Who has ever had a general anaesthetic? Remember the bit between being knocked out and waking up? That sort of void of nothing? Well, I reckon that's exactly what death is like. It's nothing at all. That's not too bad when you think about it. At least it's a decent sleep for a change.

My other death thought is this. I suggest if you're going to kick the bucket then hopefully it'll happen whilst you're in bed, as my experience is that there's not a lot of dignity in sudden death. What do I do for a job? Well, put it this way I've seen death in lots of different ways. Violent mainly and I can say I've ticked all of the most eye popping visual boxes. Shot, stabbed, decapitated, hanging etc. I must say in all this I can't remember too many lying in a bed. My advice? Don't die violently, as it doesn't look like a lot of fun.

The photo...that I'm most proud of:

Now, you can't tell me these are not good koala photos? I refuse to listen to any differing opinions! I took both of these at the Cape Otway camp site on the Great Ocean Walk. A couple of things first. The top photo was taken in low light as they descended a tree and believe it or not, I was the only one taking pictures, whilst about 15 people were sitting nearby just talking crap. I've never seen a koala and joey like this before and I knew it would be pretty special if I got a nice image, so I went nuts with the photos hoping to get one good one. I was using an 18-135 mm lens zoomed right in and the light was so dim the ISO was set to 1600. I've got a few shots, but this is the only one where they were looking directly at me.

I've entered these photos in the odd wildlife photo competition and they've never been short listed. Frustratingly in one competition a koala photo got into the top ten, but the koala was so far away it appeared to have been taken by a low flying satellite. It truly was a crap photo. What about my koalas??!! I have a sneaky suspicion that some people think they've been taken in a zoo or animal enclosure. Umm.. No, they were taken in the bush I'm afraid. Show me a better koala picture!!!

So, there you go. It's all over. This started out like something fun, but it turned out to be a bit of a pain in the arse. I've got so many photos, but the method of storage is a joke. Anyway, these photos will do. Now, I'm meant to continue the blogging chain letter going and nominate other people to attempt this, but I don't know if I can pass this pain onto someone else though. My suggestion is that if any victim happens to read right through this post, then they are free to give the concept a go themselves.

One bloke who I think would be good at this is the Goat who is currently jailed working in Korea. He seems to have had his onions busted by the crazy school system over there. He doesn't have to worry too much as I read today that North Korea is planning to level Seoul. Oh well, that's a bummer.

Who else? Well, there's lots. Darren has some nice shots and what about Wazza? I reckon he's doing a bit of walking on the sly and not telling anyone about it.

I guess that's it? I really should do a walk soon I think...

Buff to Bust: A Story of Headwear

"Don't part with your buffs. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live" - Mark Twain

What's going in the photo above? I'll get to that in a minute and ignore the fact you've seen the picture in my Hanging Rock post before.

Do you realise that has taken me about three years to come up with my definitive headwear for hot weather hiking? I'm glad I worked it out just as summer ended. What is it? Well, this is pretty cutting edge stuff, but it's a Buff worn under a wide brimmed hat. This is where the problem begins though.

Ignore the possum around my head, but do you see the buff across my face in the photo above? It's made many an appearance on the blog, but there was a tragedy at the end of last year. Yep, I lost it.

Believe it or not, but on the Grampians hike I somehow lost it at a caravan park. Yeah, yeah, I know, it's even stupider that I didn't even lose it whilst hiking. I went all summer without my favourite buff which is one of the signature items of this infernal blog. Actually, I've had hundreds of people email me (actually, that's none) and ask why I have my face covered like that. Well, you would as well considering what I have to put up with on a daily basis. Here's a photo of what I look like when I'm at work.

See the problem? I don't actually have a head. You try and enjoy your dinner when you don't have a mouth.

I guess everyone who has put on a hiking boot knows what a buff is, but for the more cruisy reader I'll explain it for you. It's a sort of rag looking thing that's soft and you can wrap it around your head. How's that for a technical explanation? For me it's essential equipment for soaking up sweat on my head, because without it I get something similar to a tap, flowing salty water into my eyes. It's comfortable as well, which is essential as the skin on my forehead is as soft as a piano players.

So, in the hope that I hadn't lost it, I decided to go for an intense search. First of all I gave my car the once over and other than finding a cucumber that had turned yellow under the front seat (I wondered where that went) it wasn't in there. Next up was the house and I really did turn the place upside down. In fact I went a little overboard.

Nope. Not under the floorboards (or the walls). I had to admit defeat and you should look at that pattern on the buff in the top picture again, as you can't buy it any more. I looked on all the buff websites and it appears to have been superceded. So, if you see someone out there wearing the same one I can assure you it isn't me. Well, not unless the person looks like a combination of Val Kilmer, John Holmes and Joseph Merrick.

So, I had to buy some more. As I approached this task I decided that I had to have some spares in case of any future losses. The result was I went completely bonkers. Well, you would as well, if you realised that it's cheaper to buy them online from overseas than it is in a hiking store here. This is what I've ended up with.

 

A complete buff smorgasbord is the result. Now, just to keep this boring post going I'm going to tell you which pattern each one is. Now from left to right, the first one is the Xoui, next up the Kindia, then the Mongar (sounds like a word 'captcha') and lastly the Abaya. Wow, I'm glad that's over with as it was hurting my brain typing those wacky names.

How do I wear it? I think every hiker in the history of mankind wears it 'pirate' style. It's the most obvious and effective I guess. As this blog's job is to help out fellow walkers, I've decided to show you the various ways it can be worn. The buff of choice for me is the Abaya and I called in my stunt double to show me the 'pirate'. He wasn't in a very good mood though which can be attributed to a lack of sugar. A complete finger-a-thon was the result.

The Pirate

In fact, just to head into the weird world, there's videos showing you how to wear it. What annoys me though is that none of more effective ways I've found are included. There's a number which are quite efficient, so I guess I should show you. It may look odd at first glance, but I wouldn't be so easily dismissive of 'The Chef'.

The Chef

There's a number of others that look a little odd, but I've found they're not too bad. Next up is 'The Firing Squad - Passive'.

Firing Squad - Passive

There's even one that I've used whilst I was bringing sexy back to hiking. This one is called, 'The Sensual'. Okay ladies, just hold yourself back for a moment.

The Sensual

Next up is this one which works quite well if you've had too much cocaine and lemon tarts in the one sitting. What's it called? Well, that's obvious, it's 'The Insane'.

The Insane

 
Remember the 'Firing Squad - Passive'? There is of course a flip side to that one and naturally it's, 'The Firing Squad - Fearless'.

The Firing Squad - Fearless

 
So, there's a few more methods than just the plain old 'pirate'. Now, I mentioned earlier that I don't just wear a buff. It has to be combined with my Outdoor Research Sombriolet Sun Hat. It's wide brimmed, soft and comfortable. Even the chin-strap which can be tightened feels good during hurricane force wind.

Outdoor Research Sombriolet Sun Hat 

So, that's it for my summer headwear, but there's a couple more things. Being a MYOG sort of a bloke I have built a combination Outdoor Research hat with anti-alien and government properties. I'm not sure why other crackpots people don't use my method. Let's have a look at it first.

Soap McTavish modelling the OR Anti-Alien

I've found it can block nearly all government thought reading waves plus most alien activity. You may laugh, but have you ever been abducted by aliens? It's pretty annoying getting sucked up the chimney by low flying UFO's on a Friday night. I'd lose my weekend stuck on a flying saucer, and about the only win I had was one trip where I managed to knock off one of my captors wallets.

Now, with my special hat I'm more or less safe. If I hear the distinct humming above the roof of my house I adopt the 'behind the couch position' which is well away from the chimney.

This works, but if you're a bit slow you always have another line of defence. We're hikers aren't we? I don't know anyone who can walk for a week and not develop a nostril flaming stench. You have to turn this to your advantage and if the aliens are getting close give them a 'stench slam' of week old underpants, socks and shirt. You'll be pretty safe if combined with an aggressive 'twin rigid digits'. Who could survive this? No one, that's who.

So, that's about it. There's not much else to do other than get the saxophone out and while you're at it, give yourself a pat on the back if you can pick the movie without reading the photo tags...

Mount Dandenong Circuit Walk. Dandenong Ranges National Park

RJ Hamer Arboretum, Dandenong Ranges National Park

I guess it's time for a day hike? The walk in this post is one I've wanted to do for the past few months. A circuit walk up in the Dandenongs east of Melbourne always sounded like a nice stroll, but for me it's on the other side of town and driving there always makes me feel a little suicidal. If I was going to go through some driving pain then I think it's best to share it, so I managed to drag Anon along.

You'll find this walk in the Glenn Tempest book 'Daywalks Around Victoria' (where else?!) and I'm slowly working my way through the walks in this book. He doesn't make things easy though as Open Spaces Books are pumping out new hiking books regularly. What's he trying to do? Kill me? Anyway, the Dandenong Ranges National Park is a nice place to go walking, but you must be prepared to share it with millions of others as the whole area is pretty popular on weekends.

We'd attempted this hike a couple of months back, but ended up getting into the hills too late in the day, so we abandoned and elected to do the 1000 steps walk instead. What's that walk? Well, simply put, it's a stack of steps up a hillside and there are memorial plaques along the way giving a write up on the Kokoda campaign in World War Two. The main reason I'm mentioning this is I've just worked out that I can embed my Garmin GPS readings on the blog page instead of attaching links. Why didn't I work this out about 25 posts ago? I'll show you what I mean as the 1000 steps walk from the GPS is below.



See what I mean? You can click on it and do all sorts of things. Oh well, you'll see them more often from now on. You might be asking, "What's the 1000 Steps walk like?" Well, I don't have any photos at all as I think the walk should be renamed the '1000 people'. It was like rush-hour and I was glad to get it over and done with. It might be okay mid-week, mid-winter, mid-night time and mid-hailstorm. Only then would the crowds be a little reduced and I can't say I'm interested in returning to rub shoulders with half of Melbourne on a walk again.

This time we allowed ourselves plenty of time to finish the walk although this was the first day in which daylight savings had finished. The walk begins in Olinda and the first port of call was the nearest bakery. The only problem with this method is that all the prices in the Dandenongs seem to be geared to slugging the tourist. I guess my mistake was to order a small homemade apple pie which cost a lazy $10, but although I was now destitute and I'd have to skip a few meals during the week I at least had a snack for the walk.

So, with the wallet lighter we were off on the well formed Rock Track. In fact nearly all the tracks for the day were wide and provided easy walking.

Rock Track

A few weeks back, the Goat introduced me to what at first glance, appears to be a completely daft topic on Wikipedia titled, 'Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo'. It's a grammatical mind-bender, but Anon decided to weigh in with an alternative where the word 'buffalo' is substituted with 'badger'. I think the first 30 minutes of the walk were spent analysing the word 'badger'. It's just about perfect. There's a town called 'Badger', to annoy someone could be to 'badger' them, but the only thing that trips it up is that unlike 'buffalo', more than one 'badger' would be 'badgers' I believe. Mm... Blast.

Whilst the word 'badger' was being dissected we almost missed a group of balloons stuck in a tree. Not really the greatest sight to see and no doubt they'll end up in Port Phillip Bay at some point in which a toll will be taken on the wildlife there.

I was feeling a little risqué when it came to photographs for this walk. Instead of taking an 18-105mm zoom lens, I decided to just make do with a 35mm F1.8 prime on the camera. This can be a little restrictive and intimidating as I would be forced to move around for any composition. It's pretty easy work with a zoom, but with the 35mm not being wide angle I'd have my work cut out a little. Oh well, that's the sort of first-world wild man I can be.

It was easy going to the first place of interest being the R.J. Hamer Arboretum which is an area of colourful Japanese maple and silver birch trees. It was my first chance at having to move around in order to capture the scene, but having a wide-angle makes photographing trees so much easier. I was bending backwards until my hair was touching my heels, lying on the ground and stepping through the bush to get some sort of decent shot.

Whew. This is hard work. Just as in the Judas Priest song, 'Hot Bokeh', a big advantage of the F1.8 is I was starting to get some depth of field blur happening in the pictures.

'Bringing Back the Balls to Bokeh' - Lordi

'Let There Be Bokeh - AC/DC'

We continued on making good time, but it's always a worry when it seems as if the first hour is spent going downhill. Surely there's a pay off later for this casual descending? It was all pretty much standard Dandenong Ranges fare which is beautiful tall trees and plenty of ferns.

Mathias Track

Do you see what's going on the photo above? I was forced to resort to extreme measures for that photo by actually lying on the ground. I can do that, but with my creaky knees it takes me as long to get up as a supertanker takes to stop in the ocean. What sort of analogy is that? Well, it's the best I can come up with right now. The trouble is I'm writing this before 6 pm. After six is when my better analogies are written.

'Cites on Flame with Bokeh - Blue Öyster Cult' 

We slowly strolled up Mathias Track passing a feather on the ground which had me lying in the dirt again to photograph it.

Lying on the ground isn't too bad as one gets to see the surrounding trees from a new angle.

You know what else was brought to my attention last week? Ben informed me that the words 'hot dog' doesn't make sense. He went into quite a detailed description of how a 'sausage roll' should be the name of what a 'hot dog' sausage is now. Why? Well, it's a sausage that goes into a roll. My question to that is, "Okay, if that's the case, what do you call that's currently a sausage roll now?" Ben answered confidently, "The names should just be swapped. The hot dog is no more a hot dog than a sausage roll". See what I have to deal with?

Back to the walk. We reached Falls Road which is followed a short distance to guess where? Yes, Olinda Falls of course.

Falls Road

We strolled down to Doreys Bridge which took us by surprise as it's not really a bridge at all. Okay, it sort of is as the road goes over a huge concrete pipe which water flows through. There's no traditional looking bridge though. Actually, this is getting too difficult to describe, so I'll just show you a picture instead.

Doreys Bridge

See what I mean? If you didn't hear the water you would think you've missed it. Now, the stroll to Olinda Falls is a side-trip from here. Anon wasn't very enthused about doing any side-trips, but I have a problem with that. The falls were in the walk notes and if I don't do everything as described in the notes then I can't classify the hike as completed. Without the falls, the walk will be filed as a 'Did Not Finish' (DNF) which means I might as well have not done the walk at all. I'd also have to come back and re-do it for the sake of completion. Yes, I'm aware that it's a mental condition, but that's the way it goes, so we were off on a fern covered track to the falls.

There were plenty of sights to see on the way which forced me to enable F1.8 on the camera. Firstly there was a reasonable group of fungi...

...then a small fern leaf swinging by a cobweb in the breeze...

'Raised on Bokeh - Elvis Presley'

...and a curled up fern frond.

The fungi kept coming as well which is not surprising as this section was a closed in fern-fest. The whole area was damp and I could imagine it would remain that way even in warm weather.

Now, I wasn't expecting that these falls would stop the world from turning, as the notes say, ..."don't expect anything too dramatic..." and upon reaching them I realised those words were quite prophetic. They really are an extremely casual looking falls. Actually, is there a required drop for something to be named a waterfall? I would think there has to be some sort of rule as Olinda Falls just struck me as a largish rock with water pouring over it. Mind you the largish rock is about my height. It didn't help that there were at least 20 people yelling, screaming, videotaping, taking clothes off (yes, seriously) and running around as if they'd just stumbled across the Niagara Falls. Anyway, this was a hit-run mission due to the racket and I'd have better photos if the people taking their clothes off didn't get in the way.

Olinda Falls (The top of the falls are at my eye level)

There will be no half naked people flashing skin in this blog as it's 'family friendly' and I can't afford to upset my readers. I mean, only last week I said 'fuck' in a tweet on Twitter and immediately lost two followers. Egads! Criminy! Jumping Jehoshaphat!

So, we left Piss Poor Olinda Falls and made our way to one of the highlights of the trip I was looking forward to. Yes, there's a picnic ground nearby and it was a chance to eat the $10 diamond encrusted apple pie. You know what's stupid though? I took about 300 photos on this days walk, but do you think I bothered to take a picture of the pie? I've no idea what I was thinking other than inhaling the pie as if I hadn't eaten in months. By the time I thought about a photo I was only surrounded by the detritus of pastry munching which was an empty paper bag and dozens of crumbs.

There was a trade off to having this apple pie though and that is I broke the GPS. What? Yes, somehow in showing off my incredible athleticism I leapt to my feet and the cord of the GPS which was around my neck became caught on the slats of the picnic table. As I accelerated to near supersonic speed upwards the table wedged GPS just snapped off the mount to the neck strap. Is this possible? Did Garmin just go head to head with an apple pie and lost? So, I was left with a cord around my neck and a GPS lying on the ground. Grrr... In order to save the day I had to utilise some of my 'Bear Greggz' skills and rethreaded the neck strap to the back cover of the GPS. It's not perfect, but at least it's sort of how it used to look.

Rethreaded strap...

It was time to head off and return to Doreys Bridge with the next section being a long slow climb up Mechanics Track. This was probably the only uneven path for the day as it weaved amongst ferns.

Mechanics Track

This damp forest was perfect fungi territory...

'Disco Nights (Bokeh-Freak) - GQ'

...and for spare car parts. Car parts?

Okay, I had better get moving as I've just noticed this post in which not a lot happened is getting massive. The next target was Mount Dandenong itself which is the highest point of the range at 633 metres. Before getting there though we passed through Mount Dandenong Arboretum which was full of colourful trees and fallen leaves.

'Bokeh - Primal Scream'

Not to mention flowers...

There was a shortish climb to the top of Mount Dandenong which usually has nice views of Melbourne. On this day though, the sky was white with cloud and glare which reduced visibility through the haze. So, I didn't take any photos at the top and also the fact there had to be about two hundred people around didn't help. The place was going nuts with barbecues and functions and about the only picture I took was of this statue in one of the gardens.

This walk was over half way now and we were quite keen to escape the hordes on top of the mountain. The next track to walk on took us to the 'Kyeema Memorial'. What's that? Well, I didn't know what it was and had never visited it before, but in 1938 a DC-2 plane called the 'Kyeema' flew into the side of Mount Dandenong in bad weather, killing 18 people. The appropriately called Kyeema Track led to that spot as it hugged the side of Mount Dandenong.

There were some nice views here, but with the glare it was an exposure nightmare. I spent about 20 minutes on Lightroom trying to resurrect this picture from a complete white-out. It's not perfect, but you should see the original untouched image!

The track from now until the end of the walk was generally nice and wide which made for comfortable strolling.

We reached the Kyeema Memorial which consisted of a plaque and information board. I was going to take some pictures here, but unfortunately three of the stupidest people in the history of mankind were there. One insisted in sitting on top of the memorial and wouldn't budge for the ten minutes we spent there whilst uttering complete idiotic crap. There was stuff like, "Whoa! Dude! Look at the size of that ant!!" and then a convoluted conversation which consisted of, "Why would it crash here, when this isn't the top?" In the short time I listened to these bozos I could feel my brain turning into blancmange. In the end I managed to take a photo of a small plane symbol on the memorial, but it's a pity the whole thing has been scratched and engraved by a million dickheads over the years.

Oh well, it was nice to see the memorial, but unfortunately that's the problem of walking in areas that are insanely popular.

On we continued whilst passing a massive television tower. The Dandenongs are actually full of transmission towers and the one we passed happened to be the biggest at 204 metres.

We didn't spend long at the barbed wire fenced compound of the huge tower. There was a quick descent down into a fern lined path again which was ringed with some enormous trees.

We were well and truly on the home straight now until we came across this...

This just happened to be exactly where we needed to go, so I looked at the sign for about 0.5 of a second and walked around it. It seems every walk I go on I come across a sign like this and if I obey every one I'll never get any strolling done. I was interested to see what the problem was and after a kilometre or so we came across a section of the track which had been washed away.

Guess how long it took to negotiate that hole in the picture above? How does 20 seconds grab you? We stepped down into the hole and walked up the side before continuing on although there was a toll in doing this. I got some dirt on a couple of my fingers.

It was getting a bit late in the day now and with the light a little dim we were rushing along. There was a few more hills to come with one lined by trees...

...before coming to the final track for the day. The setting sun was putting a nice glow through the trees and this happened to be the largest hill for the day. It was about 500 metres long and after a day of walking I was suddenly feeling a little stuffed.

We slowly chugged up to the top where a residential street appeared and it was only a few hundred metres more to the car. Oh yeah, by the way it was bin night (recyclable).

A short stroll on this road and we were back at the car just as it was getting dark which was pretty good timing in the end. So, that was another walk done and it was quite nice. The only thing that bugs me about the Dandenongs is their popularity which I admit is my problem and not others. We saw lots of people during the day and you know what else was a little annoying? The constant sound of motorbikes, both road and trail bikes. I saw barely any, but the noise was more or less constant all day. An infernal buzzing sound reverberating of the hills around us. I've no idea where they were, but they were out there somewhere.

Hey, remember the Garmin thing at the start? Well, here it is for this walk.

  


There you go. A 17 km walk with total elevation climbed of 548 metres. It's a bit more strenuous than the coastal walks I've done lately, but still not too hard. What about the pictures? Well, using only a prime lens can be hard work, but that was the idea. It also gave me a chance to get some bokeh going. Did I mention the word 'bokeh' earlier at all? I think I did. I might give it a go on my next walk, but hopefully next time it's clear and sunny as even my prime lens has a nice, new polarizer that's waiting to be abused. Okay, until next time...