LOCATION:
The Dandenong Ranges occupies 3540ha of land and is located in Eastern Victoria (Parks Victoria, 2006). So of the surrounding towns are Ferntree Gully, Sassafras, Kallista, Belgrave and Silvan.
However the sites of the 1000 steps and Lyrebird walks are located in the Town of Ferntree Gully. The UTM coordinates of this site are 55 H 351961.22m E 5804806.92m S (Google Earth, 2015). These tracks ascend and descend a small section of Mount Dandenong which spans a track length of 5km return journey (Visit Melbourne, 2015). The begging of the two tracks is located in the 1000 steps carpark in Ferntree Gully as shown by figure 2.
GEOLOGY:
The geology of the Dandenong…show more content… The spectacular mountain ash and fern gullies, are the most famous vegetation communities in the park. Likewise, the park also has specific plants such as Slender Tree-fern and Summer Spider Orchid (Parks Victoria, 2015). The area of 1000 Steps Natural Walk is mostly covered by natural vegetation, which is shown on Figure 2. The predominated vegetation in the 1000 Steps Natural Walk is a wet forest (Figure x), nearly 85% of the area is
Figure: covered by this particular vegetation. The cool temperate rainforest has been found at the higher areas of the 1000 Steps Nature Walk. Also, there is some Damp Forest at the south-east and north-east of the1000 Steps Natural Walk (Figure 1). FAUNA:
Within the Dandenong Ranges National Park, an abundance of fauna can be recorded. There is approximately 130 native bird species, 31 native mammals and 9 amphibian species (Parks Victoria, 2015). The lyrebird is the most renowned animal of the site as it has the ability to mimic sounds particularly of the neighbouring bird species (New South Wales Government, 2014). Some of these birds that live among the site are the; sulphur-crested cockatoo, crimson rosellas, kookaburras, eastern yellow robins, yellow-faced honeyeaters and pied
