Bayswater North sits at the very foot of the Dandenong Ranges, on the eastern rim of Melbourne's suburbs. The streets are quiet and leafy, and from many of them you can see the dark blue wall of the ranges rising just beyond, with Mount Dandenong and its towers on top. Dandenong Creek meanders through parkland on the western side, and the EastLink tollway carves a wide corridor nearby.
As a finishing stretch, this is where the hills hand you back to the city. Riders coming down from the Mount Dandenong Tourist Road or out of Kalorama and Montrose drop into the suburbs here, and the change is sudden: one moment you are in tall mountain ash forest with tree ferns crowding the roadside, the next you are at a set of traffic lights beside a petrol station. It is a reminder of how close Melbourne's great riding playground is to its back door.
The ranges themselves are worth knowing well. Their roads are tight, steep and often damp under the canopy, with leaf litter and moss in the shaded corners and a constant stream of tourist traffic visiting the gardens, cafés and the Puffing Billy railway around Belgrave. Weekdays are calmer. Rain can arrive quickly, and the hills can be several degrees cooler than the plain.
Fuel and food are easy in Bayswater, Boronia and Croydon, all a few minutes away. EastLink has tolls and is the fast way home; the arterials are free but slower. Either way, pause for a moment and look back up at the ridge you have just ridden.