My name is Malcolm. I am now retired - its the best job I ever had. I emigrated to Australia from England in 1957, and since 1960 have been living in the Dandenong Ranges, a beautiful mountainous and forested area east of Melbourne, Victoria, rising to 633 metres [2077 feet] at Mount Dandenong.
My name is Malcolm. I am now retired - its the best job I ever had.
Can you, my dear reader, name one of your acquaintances who can view with indifference the sight of swelling mountains, clothed with majestic gum trees, towering aloft to the very heavens, or who can stand unresponsive to the appeal of rolling vistas spread out below him - sunlit plains, nestling hamlets, far off mountains, and, beyond all, the distant sea, merging into a smudge of vapour into the azure sky? I trow not. You, yourself, perchance, in search of the glories of nature, hie away into other parts of your Australian continent, or tour the world it may be, regardless of the fact that here, at your very door, is something indescribably restful and soul-satisfying - something which may be attained at a minimum of trouble and expense. Step with me on to the magic carpet of your childhood's imaginations, and fly with me to the nearby village of Sassafras, perched high in its eyrie's on the summit of the little blue smear across the eastern sky, which you may see any day from the higher elevations of the great city. Most of the area is a large [3215 hectares] National Park with little villages dotted amongst it, where you can disappear into spellbinding fern glades and forests, meander through lush gullies and misty mountain ash to magical places like Sherbrooke Forest.