The format of these blogs is so awkward. Every time I post I think I'm going to outsmart the system, but then I end up with the exact same problem I've had every previous time. The very first pictures I upload are always the last ones to show up on the blog, so if I'm telling a story I have to start with the last pictures and work backwards, which is really hard. So hard, evidently, that once again I've started at the end and now have to come up with a clever way of making it seem like the beginning. So here it goes: I spent another night at my friend Mish's house near the Dandenong Mountains. On Saturday morning she took me on a drive into the ranges and we spent the afternoon hiking and eating and strolling through cute little shops. This picture is on our way back into civili(s)ation via a very narrow, very pothole-tastic dirt road.
Before dropping me off at the Boronia train station on her way to work, Mish took me to her favorite lookout point. It was a bit cloudy (obviously) and fiercely cold, but so gorgeous. This was the first time since I arrived in Australia that I saw such a large conglomeration of green. It's just not the color of nature here, which I'm starting to appreciate a bit more than I did. This is quite the challenge for me though, having spent the last seventeen years of my life in the Evergreen State.
Mist through the gum trees. It had rained the previous two days so the path was muddy but everything smelled earthy and green (believe me, green does have a scent). We walked a 500-meter loop to this waterfall that was once a powerful rush but now Mish refers to it as an "intense trickle." She said her dad used to attach a plastic cup to the end of a stick and from the bridge over the falls he would collect water in the cup for Mish and her sister to drink.
Fall in the Dandenongs. Mish told me the story of when she was younger and used to come here all the time. She was terrified of this pond because back then the water level was higher and it came right up to the top of the grassy islands (as in, there was no bank--just grass and then water). I then told her the story of my fear of the beaver pond at Right Place Pottery and how I was petrified that I would somehow be sucked down the steep embankment and into the water where I would never be able to escape.
We stopped at these gardens just outside of the main town, and went on a walk down a grassy knoll, around this pond, into a gazebo, and up approximately 7,000 stone steps back to the visitors cent(re). The autumn leaves were gorgeous. Not as many reds and oranges as there are at home, but still extremely pretty. It should also be noted that it was freezing. Legitimately. There was wind. And lots of shivering.
This is just a parrot. Outside Mish's kitchen window. Hanging out in the fuchsia bush. While we ate our breakfast. No. Big. Deal.
We decided to play Scrabble again. Awful, awful decision. Not only are we incapable of spelling simple words (this time it was "bath" which I spelled "baht"), we were also playing with a set Mish's parents bought in Amsterdam, and evidently the Dutch language doesn't really like vowels. After two attempts at playing, we had to give up. Defeated by a foreign board game. I have reached a new low.
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