Mount Miller

Mount Miller created by Ray Peace

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Summary

A half fare to Mount Miller please- it was the dream of John Martin, of Ferntree Gully, to build a funicular incline tramway part way up One Tree Hill in 1888. It remained just a dream

Description

Mt Miller (Alt 402m ASL) overlooks Ferntree Gully Vic. In 1888, local landowner, John Martin, had a remarkable dream. He would build a small rack railway part-way up the slopes of One Tree Hill, started about 500m east of the rail station in The Glen (which is where I used to live) and ending at a grassy knoll known as Mt Miller, named after Thomas Miller, a fellow Ferntree Gully landowner whose house survives today. Like a proposed tramway from Bayswater to Olinda in the same year, collapse of the land boom a few years later put paid to the dream. But in imagination at least, you can still stand on the summit of Mt Miller and see the frocked ladies and their sun-bonneted children stepping off the cable cars before starting on the final climb to the summit of One Tree Hill, still a quarter of a mile away

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Points of Interest

1. Scenic view

Belview terrace is a steep climb, but there are excellent views to the south across Lysterfield to the Mornington Peninsula beyond

2. The Boulevard

A very rusty steel and concrete fence on the right is not the garden of some long forgotten house. It's the boundary fence of the former Ferntree Gully Zoo, dating from the 1940s

3. Mount Miller

The actual summit is about 50m east of the track. On a clear day, there good views through the trees, including the city to the west, and Mt Macedon to the north-west

4. Lantern track

Lantern track is more gently graded and quieter than The Boulevard, with fern gullies and wildlife, only 1 km from Ferntree Gully station

5. Kerrs quarry

The view from the top of the quarry is one of the finest in the area. WARNING: entry into the former quarry site is hazardous

6. Upper Ferntree Gully rail station

This was the terminus when the line opened in 1889, and starting point for 'Puffing BIlly' for many years. Part of the walking track back to the start are on the old rail right of way

7. Upper Gully primary school

This grassy slope was the site of Upper FT Gully primary school until the school moved to Talaskia Rd in 1963. Kids could watch 'Puffing Billy' laboring up the slope from their playground