Melbourne by itself was a dynamic cosmopolitan city with quite the international flair to it.  We were fortunate to have experienced a couple of the festivals that took place there while also experiencing some of that blend of European charm (as exemplified by narrow alleyways and Victorian architecture) with the more modern 21st century megacity developments that tend to be a major characteristic of the most prosperous cities in the world.

Anyways, so far, we’ve made a pair of visits in our survey of the state – one in November 2006 and another in November 2017. The first visit happened to coincide with one of Australia’s worst droughts in its recorded history, and the drought seemed to have hit the state of Victoria particularly hard. The second visit was more improved than the first, but it also followed an unusually dry Winter and Spring that year. So this definitely took off the luster of a large percentage of waterfalls that we visited in the state, but then there were others that pleasantly surprised us with their resiliency.

Some of the waterfalling highlights from this state include Toorongo Falls in one of the rainforests of Gippsland as well as Steavenson Falls by Marysville (a major casualty of the Black Saturday bushfires). We were also surprised by the quantity and quality of waterfalls in the lush Otway Ranges like Triplet Falls, Hopetoun Falls, and Erskine Falls among others.

Finally, perhaps the biggest highlight of the Victoria Waterfalls was the resilient MacKenzie Falls, which did quite well despite the overwhelming evidence of fire and drought in the Grampians National Park.