Melbourne's Puffing Billy steam run to Gembrook in November

Belgrave to Gembrook on the narrow gauge

The locomotive waiting at Puffing Billy Railway (Belgrave station) is scarlet and cream, with a tall chimney, standing against green timber platform buildings. The track is 2ft 6in gauge. Once the train moves, steam drifts back through tree-fern gullies and legs hang over the open carriage sills.

The sill comes with age rules. Under-4s are barred from it. Children aged 4 to 13 need an adult within arm's reach, and one adult may supervise two children.

Fares go by distance. An adult return from Belgrave to Menzies Creek is $43.50. Lakeside is $66, and the full run through to Gembrook is $84.50. The Steam and Cuisine lunch train is $95.

Groups and school parties book direct with the railway, which will hold whole carriages. Belgrave has coach bays.

The trestle bridge at Selby

Monbulk Creek Trestle Bridge viewing bay (Belgrave-Gembrook Road near Greenwell Road, Selby) is about a kilometre east of Belgrave and the most photographed point on the line. The bridge carries 85 metres of curved timber on 14 six-metre spans, 12 metres high at its tallest, through a fern gully. From on board, sit on the right-hand side in the direction of travel. The roadside gravel bay holds a handful of cars and nothing larger, so coach parties shoot it from the train.

Menzies Creek and the railway museum

Entry to the Puffing Billy Railway Museum (Menzies Creek platform) is included in the train ticket, with no separate door transaction. The hall is 1,160 sq m beside a tiny country platform, with ranks of small narrow-gauge steam and diesel locos under skylights. More than 80 exhibits stand along wide aisles, and the boiler house works, brass fittings and pressure gauges included.

The opening window is narrow: Friday to Sunday, 10:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. Take an early Belgrave departure and break the journey here, or you arrive at a closed shed.

The Lakeside layover at Emerald Lake Park

Emerald Lake Park (Lakeside) is where most Belgrave to Lakeside passengers spend their hour, a whole trainload decanting at once. The lake is dark and still, rimmed by mountain ash and tree ferns, with the red train standing at the platform above the water. Behind it are mown picnic lawns, timber bridges, playgrounds and walking tracks, plus sheltered BBQ areas, a kiosk and several car parks. Entry is free. Parking is $2 up to two hours and $8 for longer.

The Lakeside Visitor Centre is free. It opens 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays and to 4:30 p.m. Friday to Sunday.

The cheap dry option in the same park is the Emerald Lake Model Railway (Emerald Lake Park), billed as the southern hemisphere's largest HO-scale layout. Two kilometres of track wind through miniature hills and tunnels across 180 sq m of low-lit hall, past 250 tiny buildings and 1,500 figures, with press buttons at child height along the barrier. Entry is $8 for an adult and $5 concession. Children aged 3 to 15 pay $4, and a family ticket is $23. It opens daily, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., closed Christmas Day. The room is small, so a large party goes in waves.

Two stops along, Emerald Museum and Nobelius Heritage Park has 4.5 hectares of 1890s nursery parkland, with avenues of mature exotic conifers and a long restored timber packing shed beside the old railway siding. This was Carl Axel Nobelius's export nursery, and that shed, which Puffing Billy now uses for its dinner trains, once loaded trees straight into rail wagons. The park is free and walkable any day. The museum building keeps limited volunteer hours and is free on open days, so ring before you detour. Book group and school tours by phone in advance.

Lunch at the Gembrook end

The Independent Gembrook (Main Street, Gembrook) is five minutes' walk from the platform, behind a heritage-listed shopfront. Chef Mauro Callegari's kitchen is open to the room, with a wood oven turning out shared Italian-Argentine plates and filled pizzas onto scrubbed timber tables. Prices are $$$. It trades Friday to Sunday only, from midday. A Mandala Wines pop-up cellar door runs the same three days, 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. Group bookings and private functions go through [email protected]. This is the reason to stay on the train past Lakeside to the Gembrook terminus.

Breakfast and a wet afternoon in Belgrave

Earthly Pleasures Cafe (Burwood Highway, Belgrave) is a weatherboard café almost buried behind a dense front garden, with courtyard tables under overhanging greenery, a short walk from the station. It opens 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. and closes Monday and Tuesday. It takes no bookings. Prices are $$. Come here for coffee and breakfast before a 10 a.m. departure.

Cameo Cinema (Belgrave main street) is the option if the weather turns. It opened on 22 November 1935 and still runs first releases, retrospectives and events. The art deco facade gives onto an auditorium with silhouetted painted trees along the walls and original foot warmers under the seats. There are several indoor screens plus an outdoor cinema, and one open-caption session a week. Prices are $$.

Sherbrooke Forest and the gardens

Grants Picnic Ground (Sherbrooke Forest) is a picnic clearing ringed by tall mountain ash and tree ferns, with king parrots and sulphur-crested cockatoos moving through the canopy. Parking is sealed and large, tables are plentiful, and entry is free. The café on site is shuttered pending a new long-term lease, a mobile coffee van covers Tuesday to Saturday, and bird feeding has been banned park-wide since 2020, with fines for ignoring it.

Alfred Nicholas Memorial Gardens covers 13 hectares around a small ornamental lake, where a timber boathouse is mirrored in black water. The kilometre of path down to it is steep, unsealed and stepped, and not passable in a wheelchair. The gates are open daylight hours seven days and entry is free. Parking is limited and there is no bus or coach parking on site, so bring a car or two at most.

Dandenong Ranges Botanic Garden (above Olinda) is the former National Rhododendron Garden, free to enter with a donation box at the entrance, open 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily. A hundred acres of banked rhododendron and azalea beds climb the hillside, with mown grass paths between them and long views out over the valley. The on-site parking takes coaches. The rhododendron and azalea peak falls late September to early October, so a November visit catches the tail of it.

William Ricketts Sanctuary reopened on 3 August 2026, after storm damage closed it in June 2021. Kiln-fired clay figures of Aboriginal people and animals emerge half-formed from mossy boulders and fern glades, water trickling over stone in deep green shade. Gates open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily, last entry 3:30 p.m., free. Only stage one is open, and the original residence and gallery area remain fenced off for works. Crowds have been at record levels since the reopening, and Parks Victoria is asking visitors to come on a weekday.

The summit stop

SkyHigh Mount Dandenong is the terrace that most Dandenongs bus itineraries bolt onto a Puffing Billy morning, at 630 metres, with the Melbourne skyline and Port Phillip Bay laid out below. Behind the giant SkyHigh lettering are an English garden and a hedge maze. Grounds and bistro open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., with hot lunch served 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., seven days a week all year. The charge is by the car on entry: $5 Monday to Friday, $10 at weekends and on public and school holidays. Bistro and restaurant mains come on top, and the function centre takes bookings.

The full day with Healesville Sanctuary

Healesville Sanctuary is the usual second half of a full-day Puffing Billy itinerary, open daily 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., 365 days a year. Bush walkways wind through open eucalypt scrub, a platypus turns in a dim glass tank, and a wedge-tailed eagle flies low over the Spirits of the Sky amphitheatre. The collection is native species only, and the wildlife hospital works on live cases. Adults pay $58 and concessions $44. Seniors are $52.50, and children aged 4 to 15 are $29. Under-16s go free at weekends and on Victorian school and public holidays, so check those dates before you pay child fares. The sanctuary handles group, school-excursion and function bookings.

Door tickets and booking ahead

Every railway ticket carries a reserved seat. Lock in the departure you want before you travel, because the departure time decides whether the Menzies Creek museum and a Gembrook lunch are still possible.

Guided day trips that pair the steam run with Healesville Sanctuary operate seven days a week, and the most-booked one is flagged as likely to sell out. Book that ahead too.

Is it worth it

It suits a traveller with a full day free and a tolerance for slow travel, and it suits families with children old enough for the sill. You pay for the day with an early start and a long sit, and you get 24 km of open-sided steam through fern gullies.

Best time to go in November

Make it a Friday if you only get one day. The Menzies Creek museum, the Gembrook kitchen and the Mandala Wines pop-up all trade Friday to Sunday, and Parks Victoria wants weekday visitors at William Ricketts Sanctuary. Friday is the only day that satisfies both.

November is fire season in these hills. Alfred Nicholas Memorial Gardens and the Dandenong Ranges Botanic Garden both close on Extreme Fire Danger days, so check the rating before you drive up.

Daylight saving buys you the evening. Emerald Lake Park keeps its gates open 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. while daylight saving runs. Outside it, the gates shut at 6 p.m.

For the sill, ride in the middle of the day. It is only legal in daylight, between Belgrave and Lakeside.

Before you book

Book your railway departure, and book the guided day trip as well if you want Healesville Sanctuary in the same day. The railway runs every day except Christmas Day, but the Menzies Creek museum, the Gembrook restaurant and the Emerald museum building all keep short or volunteer hours, so build the day around them. See the Melbourne guide and the Melbourne hotel search.