Yesterday afternoon we decided we needed to conquer the 1000 Steps which begins at the foot of the Dandenongs in Upper Ferntree Gully/Tremont and finishes at the end of One Tree Hill Road. Our reward at the end was to be scones.
I have not done the 1000 Steps before, but we wanted to see if it was easier or harder than the Diamond Head hike in Oahu. Diamond Head was a tricky, but not impossible walk, it was tough at times but generally you moved pretty quickly and the view at the end was amazing. The 1000 Steps is a memorial track for the Kokoda Trail, and has different signposts along the way.
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| Going up the steps - looks simple, right? WRONG. |
The actual steps start about a 10-15 minute walk from the car park, and they are brutal. You think they're not so bad at first but they just keep coming and coming. You often have to dodge giant puddles of mud. You have to let quicker people past you. You stop any flat stretch you get because flat stretches feel good on the legs. The steps get steeper and steeper and eventually you are basically dragging your body up by hoisting yourself along the handrails, finding an upper body strength you did not know existed. And when you finally get to the top? This:
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| This is the result at the top of the steps. Not even worth it! |
Let me remind you of the view at the top of Diamond Head, for comparison:
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| View from the top of Diamond Head (one of the many great views from the top/along the way up). |
You can read more about our Diamond Head hike
here.
Anyway, I took about 40 minutes to do the steps, with many stops, from the base of the walk leading up to the steps (so the end of the car park) to the top of the steps. I was about 5 minutes slower than my mum and husband. I really struggled. About a third of the way up I thought I couldn't keep going but I didn't let it defeat me. Be warned - there is no drink bubbler at the top either!
After a rest and the urge to throw up subsided, we made our way down via the more spacious Lyrebird Track. This was at least a 20-30 minute walk down as well.
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| Happy to be on the way down. |
In hindsight, I probably should not have gone to BodyPump in the morning of doing the 1000 Steps, but at the time I thought I'd be right!
Afterwards, we headed back to the car and into Sassafrass for some well deserved scones. We put our name down at Miss Marples and, with a 45 minute wait ahead, went into the Tea Leaves shop next door. We purchased seven bags of tea in the end! Some basic ones and some flavoured ones too. Looking forward to trying them all.
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| Some of the amazing teapots on display. |
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| These cups were really pretty but they were about $250 each!! |
We went back to Miss Marples early and our table was ready so we sat down for our scones. If you have not been to Miss Marples before, let me say that it is a real tourist trap. The scones, as you can see, are obviously baked in giant square tins and cut up like pieces of cake, which is a shame as you lose the crunchiness of the outside of the scones, and who has ever heard of a square scone anyway? The scones are quite nice, but if you're bringing Americans over for scones, this is not the place to go for authentic scones. I say scones, rather than Devonshire Tea, because Miss Marples does not do Devonshire Tea, instead calling them 'Devonshire Scones' which is just wrong, because without the tea (you have to buy your tea or other drink separate), there is nothing 'Devonshire' about them - they are just scones. My husband and I had a milkshake each (quite reasonably priced at $5 each) and my mum had a pot of tea (served in standard nursing home style white cups). Our scones came with only two serves of jam and cream, even though we had three serves of scones, so we could have done with more jam (I don't eat cream), but it was enough. Also, Miss Marples was decked out in Christmas decorations for Christmas in July and was playing really dreary Christmas carols (think 'Good King Wencalas' and 'We Three Kings') so that was a bit annoying.
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| Our afternoon tea. |
We had an enjoyable afternoon regardless of the fact our afternoon tea cost $42.50 which is a lot for some scones and drinks, really.
Have you done the 100 Steps? Have you got another challenging walk in the Melbourne/Victoria area for us to try? Do you like scones?
