Mount Dandenong, Victoria, 3767

All statistics and numbers obtained using Corelogic

MOUNT DANDENONG, A PERSONAL VIEW

STREET NAMES FROM MOUNT DANDENONG

Our streets were often named after an outstanding person in the area or sometimes just a family member. Some are just quirky (Upalong Rd is indeed up a long road), Wombat Rd, and Pig and Whistle Hill or Tatra Hut Hill – now known as Selwyn Lane.

Pioneers Of Mount Dandenong (not a complete list)

Yvonne Rd, Yvonne was a daughter of Edgar Dower

Campbell, Lou was a landholder and owned a dairy

Cambridge, Cambridge Gardens, the home of the Dower Family

Hume

Blythe

Dingley, all early Settlers. 

MY MEMORIES OF MOUNT DANDENONG

July in Mt Dandenong is cold, around 8 degrees so far. This year there is a chill to the air that encourages residents to stay inside in the warm. Venture outside for a bracing walk or a catch-up with friends at a local cafe. 

Interestingly, the cafes of the Mt Dandenong Village are technically in Olinda. I am not sure why they became known as the Mt D shops or when. Growing up there was Upper Olinda and lower Olinda in my house. Other old-time locals may have a different impression, I will have to ask! 

The Mt Dandenong Hotel is in Olinda, and the Post Office across the road is the Olinda Post Office. The IGA is known as the Mt Dandenong IGA. The Hills are a strange place indeed. 

The Mount Dandenong of my childhood included the Mt D Garage, Thomas’ General Store, the kinder, and my primary school, Mount Dandenong Primary. There were tourist attractions such as Sky High and William Ricketts and our local hall was in Farndons Rd. 

Completely different to now with the garage no longer the active hub where you got your car serviced and bought petrol, running across the road (it wasn’t very busy) to the shop to pick up the mail, buy ice cream or some other treat or even something for tea that you had forgotten to buy at the supermarket in Belgrave (there were three) or a bigger shop in Croydon. These were the pre-Safeway or Woolworths days. 

Farndons Hall was known as the CWA Hall. It was a venue for many local activities such as end-of-year concerts (and kiss chasey). 

The playground at SkyHigh was our closest and they had one of the most exciting and hazardous for teeth pieces of equipment – the big circle that you ran around to make it pick up speed before quickly attempting to grab hold and perch uncomfortably as it whirled around. 

I remember when SkyHigh was new and very flash. My mum and auntie Val went to lunch and we kids had to stay outside. There was a concrete edge to the upper storey and mum was mortified that we children clambered up and inched around it (it was high and about 18 inches wide from memory). The good old days when kids could roam and mum was more worried about the appearance of the behaviour of her heathen children than our safety!

We walked to everything. School, Sunday School at St Michaels, netball and the Olinda Pool in Summer. It was a great day when Mum picked us up from school or came to collect us from the Olinda shops after netball. We would go to the Olinda Post Office and press the A or B button (I can’t remember exactly), dial home (it was a dial not push buttons) and quickly state “pick us up please” before hanging up. If you did this quickly then you didn’t need to put money in the phone. I think it was 10 cents. 10 cents bought you a lot in the late 60s and 70s. 

Our first home back in the Hills was in Ridge Rd Mount Dandenong. We fell in love with the garden, the house was appalling. It had been a rental for a very long time and was ripe for demolition, or so we thought when we bought it. I had known the property for a long time as one of my primary school friends lived next door. Her dad was a builder and built their home in the 70s. When we first moved to the Hills in the summer of 1968/1969 this family lived in Ricketts Court. 

We moved in and extended rather than demolished. The roof leaked, there was no working ducted heating, there was a woodheater and an old/ancient bottled gas heater. The laundry was outside and the kitchen smelt like rats. A rambling home that we quickly realised needed renovation fast! Two of the three bedrooms at the front became the main bedroom, ensuite and walk-in robe with the third becoming my study with garage access. We added a family room with a beautiful outlook over Trig Track and National Park and an attached double garage. The laundry moved inside, the kitchen relocated and the revolting bathroom updated. We bought the home for $128,000 in 1992, sold it for $285,000 in 2001 and it recently sold for $1,410,000. Great memories at the home we called ‘ Ridgecroft’. Childrens birthday parties, snow in the Winter and lots of entertaining. 

Our children also went to Mount Dandenong Primary and Pre School. Established in 1897, the original school had been demolished (termites apparently but an appalling decision), and a new school was built in its place in the 1990s. The old school building had been brought up from Ringwood and was a gorgeous old weatherboard with timber floors. There was an old style bell outside that the bell monitor (me in 1974) had to pull up the rope to ring or when the rope broke, hit the bell with a broom!

The Pre School or Kinder is currently operating temporarily at Olinda Primary School. Damaged extensively in the same storm that almost wiped out William Ricketts Sanctuary. It’s hard to see this building still unrepaired with no clear path forward. Heartbreaking and disappointing for locals, both adults, and children, to see this building in its present condition. 

Although the school didn’t look the same as when I went there, it quickly became part of our lives. It was nowhere near as civilised as it now is. A huge mudslide in Winter from one section of the playground to the other became forbidden but not before we needed to ensure extra clothes were in the school bags or a phone call received to ‘pick up Zach as he was covered in mud’. Wonderful friendships formed in the Preschool and Primary years before the local children went off to High school to various places, usually off the Hill to Monbulk, Upwey or Pembroke (in my day and my childrens). There were also the private schools of Mater Christi, St Josephs, Tintern, Yarra Valley, Luther and Billanook. Great joy for my family when the Tintern/Yarra Valley/Luther bus began around 1978 to transport us to school rather than the transport of mum or dad or the long haul by public bus to Croydon then a train.

Local events in July usually included cafes and restaurants celebrating Christmas in July. 

This year Puffing Billy ran nightlights and there was the Regrowth Festival last weekend at Kalorama oval for locals. Of course, there is always local sport, football, netball, basketball, and tennis. Crazy memories of clearing snow off the netball court so we could train!

The Mount Dandenong & District Historical Society met, as usual, on the first Saturday of the month, at the now named ‘Farndons Hall’ which was the CWA Hall in my childhood, as they do every month usually from 10 am-12 pm.

A TIP, some of the best parts of Mount Dandenong (in my opinion) are off the beaten track or little known. The Arboretum on Ridge Rd is around 16 hectares of mature, conifers, deciduous trees and open meadow. A beautiful place for the kids to run around with a car park on Ridge Rd or if you are local like we were, stroll over. An episode of ‘Round the Twist’ was filmed here and the snowfall one year was absolutely stunning, it felt like Europe at Christmas.

8 THINGS/PLACES I LOVE ABOUT MOUNT DANDENONG

PLACES IN AND AROUND MOUNT DANDENONG

• Mt Dandenong Pre School and Primary School
• Billanook Primary School Montrose
• Ghilgai Steiner School
• Mt Dandenong Village – IGA, Post Office, Mt Dandenong Hotel, Pellegrinos, Mountain Wholefoods, Dandenong Ranges Real Estate, Montage Cafe etc
• Olinda Village, Sassafras Village
• Croydon Station
• Public transport runs along the Mt Dandenong Tourist Rd