Kanga-poo and the crisp explosion
One day last week Dim tasked me with coming up with a plan for Sunday — the day of the weekend that it wasn’t supposed to rain. I forgot to do this, so when she asked me what I had come up with I picked up my phone and came up with something looking at the map. It turned into our favourite day here so far.
After heading up to Preston on Sunday morning for Dim to get a Lebanese bakery product and me to get a Chinese faux meat sandwich, we got the train up to South Morang to head to Plenty Gorge Park. It turned out that to get there we had to walk through a Westfield shopping center, where we had a look in a cheap clothes shop, then I got some crisps. ‘I really think that you’ll like the french onion dip flavour Jon, trust me’ Dim said. So I did and squeezed them into the already busy backpack.
Soon we made it to the park and made our way in via an out-of-place looking gate. Instantly we were in the bush, which was quite an odd sensation because five minutes before we had been strolling through an estate and for a while could still see the expensive houses through the trees. Dim spotted a cockatoo and as I whipped out my point and shoot camera and started to zoom and focus it flew away. Standard.

We made our way down the steep banks to the river and then back up the other side. After another few minutes I was looking at my camera and realised that I had made the ultimate schoolboy error beyond forgetting to charge it — I had taken the SD card out at some point and not put it back in. Therefore all photos from this delightful place are taken on my phone and therefore the quality sucks.

We continued on and made our way down to the main river. We tried to stick to the main paths as the sign on the way in had advised. They seemed to stick to the banks of the rather wide river, which was a problem as we needed to cross it at some point. After crossing one of the smaller streams Dim pointed out the sound that has haunted me since my first trips to Australia — the ‘laugh’ of the kookaburra. We couldn’t see it, but a few minutes later Dim spotted one swoop down in front of us and sit in a tree for a while.

On seeing something small move in the distance at one point, I wondered outloud whether it was a wombat. Absolutely not said Dim. A bit later on she spotted this large hole in the ground, which could be a wombat hole apparently.
We were using google maps on Dim’s phone, which was completely useless for trying to work out a way across the river. I was minded to push on on the main path rather than follow every little trail off on the hope that we might find a crossing, but then on following one of the little trails we eventually found a small bridge across.

As we went to make out way up the steep bank the other side of this a mountain biker came throttling over the ridge and quickly past us with a ‘G’day!’. If either of us had been ten seconds quicker it could have been a pretty lousy Sunday morning. Now we had managed to cross the river, the next concern became exactly how we were supposed to get out of the park somewhere near the tram without a map that had footpaths on it. We had both been expecting more a typical park rather than an actual bit of bush, so I resolved to head for the cark park that was marked on google maps in the heart of the park, in the hope that it would have some form of map. It did not, but the view from the top was pretty good.

While there was no map, there were a few tracks signposted, so we followed the one that headed directly south. On our way Dim spotted a few kangeroos in the distance. I tried to creep a bit closer to combat the awful zoom on my phone and as I did two of them stood up and started fighting. Not seen that before. The photo below really didn’t do it justice.

The track took us up on to a meadow. We had strayed from the path, and as we headed across the lea trying to find the path again we noticed lots of big piles of poo. Everywhere. 200 meters later and all was revealed. We spotted a cockatoo sitting around, which took off just as a I took the picture.

A bit further on and we saw the explanation for all of the poo.

There were dozens of kangaroos lying around on the meadow. It was tricky to know exactly how close I could sneak up to them. I got about 50m away and one stood up, looked at me and bounced away, so that presumably was the line.

We walked on, keeping and eye on the herd (according to the internet there isn’t a fun noun a la school of fish for kangaroos) and we got a better view of just how many there were.

We left the herd behind and continued down our trail into the woods. We slowly started making our way down to the river again. The track we were on seemed fairly major and we were rewarded with some stepping stones. Following the heavy rain on Saturday the river was in spate, so what would have been a pleasant hop across the stones on a usual day became a much trickier obstacle to negotiate with most of the stones underwater.

I got to a the large stone in the middle and managed to get some stable footing to help Dim to the bit just behind me. Dim decided that it might be helpful for balance if she threw her carry bag across. What a great idea I thought, and threw my backpack the rest of the way. It landed with a bit of a pop. My cap went next. Then Dim’s bag.

The next stage had some broken branches but I opted for the stones instead. About half way my right foot slipped and went in the drink. Dim kept dry.

Upon arrival on the other side, I went to get my bottle of water out of my now slightly muddy backpack. As I unzipped the majority of my large bag of crisps emptied out on to the river bank below. It turns out that that pop we had heard was not a little hole blowing in the bag of crisps, but both ends of the bag blowing completely. I looked down at the floor and picked one up. ‘You were right Dim,’ I started sadly. ‘I really do like this flavour.’ We had a few more that hadn’t hit the mud but the ants had appeared already to claim their sacrifice. Heartbroken, we pushed on. At the top of the hill there was another kangaroo and another cockatoo.


We then made it to the road, successfully having negotiated the park without a map. We were about an hour behind where I thought we would be and it started raining, so we decided to forgo the second part of our day, get groceries and then head home. A number of crisps fell out of the bag when I packed the groceries. Upon emerging from Coles, Dim saw the time and to avoid accusations of robbing her day, I reneged on the idea to go to Mt Cooper lookout, despite the rain. After a quick tram journey we got off and headed through an estate, where, of course, it started raining. Actual rain, not just a spot of drizzle. Good thing my waterproof was lost somewhere between London and Melbourne and I hadn’t go around to getting another one yet. We briefly took shelter below a tree.

It eased off a bit, so we headed on, found the park and started heading up the hill. Took shelter again. Then got to the top of the hill, which the sign proudly declared as the highest natural point in suburban Melbourne at 137m above sea level.

The view was naff. This is looking north west. Below the power lines. Looking south, toward the city, was worse. Some bright spark had decided to let the rich and affluent build massive houses there. Meaning that you couldn’t see Melbourne itself from its highest natural point. In the rain. From this disappointment we continued through the park, saw the small farm that is there and I got in trouble for almost stealing a tennis ball. Dim kept laughing about my exploding crisps.
We got home in time to see England lose against New Zealand. So while the day had tailed off, Plenty Gorge was a really good morning out and there are plenty of trails in there that we didn’t get a chance to take. We shall be heading back with a map and a SD card.


