Sometimes the best adventures aren’t planned — they’re the ones waiting quietly beside the road, asking us to stop and look closer. On a rainy drive home along the Calder Freeway, curiosity led me to finally pull into Organ Pipes National Park — a place I’d passed countless times but never explored. What I found was a hidden pocket of wonder just outside Melbourne: ancient basalt columns rising above Jacksons Creek, blue wrens darting through wet bushland, and that unmistakable calm that comes from slowing down and being truly present.

There’s a quiet kind of magic that lingers on the Domino Trail. Beneath towering gums and over forgotten rail bridges, we walked 12 slow kilometres from Trentham to Lyonville and back—training for the Cotswold Way, but gaining so much more than miles. This wasn’t just a walk; it was a reminder that the best travel moments often unfold in the hush between footsteps, the scent of woodsmoke, and a hot country pie shared at journey’s end.