Chestnuts at Mt Dandenong (by Bienne Tam)
In the autumn of 2022, Judy Vizarri visited a property in Mt Dandenong and collected chestnuts. She then wrote up her visit for this website. A year later, in the autumn of 2023, Bienne Tam visited the same property and her writeup is below. If you would like to visit and collect chestnuts in the autumn of 2024, the owner’s name is Sylvie her email address is sylvie9274@gmail.com.
Sylvie, the owner of the property, received us very well along with many Asian visitors on the day. I got plenty of exercise as I picked up a lot of chestnuts into buckets. Sylvie kindly gave us a discount.
We took away around 13Kg of chestnuts before we met other Chinese and Vietnamese outside who were wanting to go in and get their fair share.
Sylvie’s place was very popular with Asian population as we saw cars coming in and out all the time.
The Patch, chestnuts picking
The weather was so nice and pleasing to the souls on ANZAC day! We started off picking the chestnuts before discovering that the nearby reservoir was closed for long term maintenance.
The huge open space around the reservoir could allow for a lot of activities such as lying down and relaxing, playing games, reading books, having picnic lunches and so on.
The photo right overlooks the heartland of Dandenong Ranges from on high and inlcudes some chestnut trees on the left. The area would be great for summer retreats, seeing the starry hosts of the universe clearly.
Kalorama Park Lookout
As we were not able to visit the nearby reservoir, we worked out a new route to travel around the Dandenong Ranges until we came to Kalorama Park Lookout, where you can enjoy the open space while having a glimpse of the reservoir from afar. There is a cafe in the junction that you can have a rest or have something to eat before going your way.
We looked around and rested for a while before we proceeded to Mount Dandenong.
Dandenong Ranges National Park
We were told to go to Burke’s Lookout to view the best of Melbourne. It was exciting to find out what it was like as we walked passed other people and reached our final destination. We saw Port Philip Bay from a distance while also observing the 
farmlands at the foots of the mountain.
What a refreshing time for us all.