A steep drop into Healesville's secrets: Don Road's Barrier

Affectionately known by many names, this hidden stretch of road, Dinosaur Drop, Resides at the top of Don Road, right before Mount Donna Buang.

Many locals use this road as a back way into Warburton or Don Valley, unless closed and restricted during winter months by the Yarra Ranges Council, due to icy road conditions. As soon as rain turns into snow, the road becomes chained and bouldered, not even the highest four-wheel drives can climb up over the man-made wall of rocks and into the snowy mountain.

While the edge of the road is protected now by an iron guard rail, it is evident that the rail was only introduced as an afterthought or after consequence. An array of dumped items are clearly seen down the cliff, leather couches, baby seats, miscellaneous duffel bags and other rubbish all sit together on the side of the mountain, some items decades old, some clearly dumped more recently.

The most significant items along the cliff’s edge are actually the many, many whole cars that lay at the bottom of the gully. Of course, unable to accurately count the number of vehicles that have been pushed over, the question lies quietly among newer generations…. Why?

Is it just the result of bored teens in the 80s and 90s, needing to get rid of their hunks of metal? Or is the disposal of these cars something more secretive, something more sinister? What else lies at the bottom of the gully, where local police cannot go and retrieve?

Like a rock being thrown down into the trees or into a shallow creek, did the cars crunch and crumble along debris? Was the appeal of pushing vehicles something more simple, something unexplainable and fun? When walking along the quiet road today, there is a mixture of thoughts and feelings about the landscape.

While there is an abundance of rubbish, the height making your knees tremble, the smell of rot and mould burns your nose, there is also a breathtaking beauty to the rest of the mountains facing you, as you stand looking outwards.The scenery has a magnetic pull, the vastness, the quiet and the beauty.It would have been a teenager’s dream to burn their wheels up the weaving roads, turning endless corners in their boundless cars, laughing and driving into an endless summer.

But, where there is beauty and nostalgia, there is also mystery and eerie.

Again, locals are plagued with the question of why? And who? There are said to be over 30 cars down into the local abyss. What are in these cars?

What is causing the smell? Do we have a preserved trench of Healesville crime? Or just a messy time capsule? A criminal’s safe haven, throw anything down the side, it’s likely to never be seen again. A gangster’s paradise, with burner cells still black from literal burning, It is insatiable, that the mysteries of the mountain, may not ever be revealed.

Perhaps with the new initiative to reduce rubbish and fine illegal rubbish dumpers, the Yarra Ranges Council will eventually find the manpower and resources to finally clean up and remove some of Healesville’s historical mess. Although, will any professional be able to physically and mentally take the plight, down the mountain and into the unknown? What might they find?