Gherang is a locality in

Surf Coast Shire The Surf Coast Shire is a local government area in the Barwon South West region of Victoria, Australia, located in the south-western part of the state. It covers an area of . It had a population of 32,251 in June 2018. It includes the towns o ...

, Victoria,

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

. It is located on the northern edge of the

Great Otway National Park The Great Otway National Park is a national park located in the Barwon South West region of Victoria, Australia. The national park is situated approximately southwest of Melbourne, in the Otway Ranges, a low coastal mountain range. It conta ...

and the

Anglesea Heath Anglesea Heath is a area of natural heath, woodland and forest in Victoria, south-eastern Australia. It is about south-west of Melbourne, and is just north and west of the coastal town of Anglesea. Accessible via the Great Ocean Road, the H ...

. At the 2006 census, Gherang had a population of 370. The area is mostly farmland, although there has been some rural-residential subdivision. Quarries in the area produce good quality gravel which is mostly used for roads.

History

Before British colonisation, the area had been home to the

Gadubanud The Gadubanud (Katubanut), also known as the Pallidurgbarran, Yarro waetch or Cape Otway tribe ( Tindale), are an Aboriginal Australian people of the state of Victoria. Their territory encompasses the rainforest plateau and rugged coastline of ...

Aboriginal people There is no generally accepted definition of Indigenous peoples, although in the 21st century the focus has been on self-identification, cultural difference from other groups in a state, a special relationship with their traditional territ ...

for thousands of years. Settlement by Europeans began in the mid-19th century and, as a consequence, the number of Gadubanud people rapidly declined. The area was heavily forested and gravel suitable for roads was discovered. The Wensleydale railway line was completed in 1890, connecting the area to the

Port Fairy railway line The Warrnambool railway line is a railway serving the south west of Victoria, Australia. Running from the western Melbourne suburb of Newport through the cities of Geelong and Warrnambool, the line once terminated at the coastal town of Port ...

near Moriac, with the intention of inducing development along the route and transporting timber and firewood. A small station served Gherang but saw very little traffic. However, in 1921, a rail siding about 700 metres south of the station was provided for the Gherang Gravel Conference, a grouping of three municipalities in the Geelong area, which was quarrying a large gravel deposit adjacent to the line. Considerable quantities of gravel were railed out until the operation ceased in 1939. Just over a kilometre south of the station, another rail siding was provided in 1926 for a privately owned gravel-quarrying operation, which functioned intermittently until 1941. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, a small army base was established a few hundred metres east of the station, and materials and troops were brought in and out by train. The Gherang Military Post Office was open from 13 January 1942 until 22 September 1942, and from 15 February 1943 until 13 April 1943. Gherang has never had a civilian post office. After the war, the line fell back into disuse and was permanently closed in 1948.

Wildlife

Larger wildlife inhabiting Gherang include

kangaroo Kangaroos are marsupials from the family Macropodidae (macropods, meaning "large foot"). In common use, the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, the red kangaroo, as well as the antilopine kangaroo, eastern gre ...

echidnas Echidnas (), sometimes known as spiny anteaters, are quill-covered monotremes (egg-laying mammals) belonging to the family Tachyglossidae , living in Australia and New Guinea. The four extant species of echidnas and the platypus are the only l ...

koala The koala (''Phascolarctos cinereus''), sometimes inaccurately called the koala bear, is an arboreal herbivorous marsupial native to Australia. It is the only Extant taxon, extant representative of the Family (biology), family ''Phascolar ...

s and the

brushtail possum The brushtail possums are the members of the genus ''Trichosurus'' in the Phalangeridae, a family of marsupials. They are native to Australia (including Tasmania) and some small nearby islands. Unique among marsupials, they have shifted the hyp ...

. Bird life in the area includes

kookaburra Kookaburras (pronounced ) are terrestrial animal, terrestrial tree kingfishers of the genus ''Dacelo'' native to Australia and New Guinea, which grow to between in length and weigh around . The name is a loanword from Wiradjuri language, Wira ...

magpie Magpies are birds of various species of the family Corvidae. Like other members of their family, they are widely considered to be intelligent creatures. The Eurasian magpie, for instance, is thought to rank among the world's most intelligent c ...

little raven The little raven (''Corvus mellori'') is a species of the family Corvidae that is native to southeastern Australia. An adult individual is about in length, with completely black plumage, beak, and legs; as with all Australian species of ''Corv ...

s, willie wagtails,

pigeon Columbidae is a bird family consisting of doves and pigeons. It is the only family in the order Columbiformes. These are stout-bodied birds with small heads, relatively short necks and slender bills that in some species feature fleshy ceres. ...

quail Quail is a collective name for several genera of mid-sized birds generally placed in the order Galliformes. The collective noun for a group of quail is a flock, covey, or bevy. Old World quail are placed in the family Phasianidae, and New ...

, and a variety of parrot species. Reptiles include the brown snake, blue-tongued lizard and smaller

skink Skinks are a type of lizard belonging to the family (biology), family Scincidae, a family in the Taxonomic rank, infraorder Scincomorpha. With more than 1,500 described species across 100 different taxonomic genera, the family Scincidae is one o ...

s. There are pest species such as

rabbit Rabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also includes the hares), which is in the order Lagomorpha (which also includes pikas). They are familiar throughout the world as a small herbivore, a prey animal, a domesticated ...

fox Foxes are small-to-medium-sized omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull; upright, triangular ears; a pointed, slightly upturned snout; and a long, bushy tail ("brush"). Twelve species ...

es and

feral cat A feral cat or a stray cat is an unowned domestic cat (''Felis catus'') that lives outdoors and avoids human contact; it does not allow itself to be handled or touched, and usually remains hidden from humans. Feral cats may breed over dozens ...

Geothermal Power

In 2007, Greenearth Energy announced a plan to build several geothermal power plants in the Gherang area to harness heat from granite which is 4 km below ground. Construction of a trial plant was planned to commence in the early 2010s but did not go ahead.

Australian Automotive Research Centre

South of Gherang is the Australian Automotive Research Centre, the largest privately owned and independently operated automotive testing facility in Australia. Occupying a 1000

hectare The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100-metre sides (1 hm2), that is, square metres (), and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. ...

site, it includes a 4.2 km highway circuit, vehicle handling tracks, brake test surfaces, and

four wheel drive The Four Wheel Drive Auto Company, more often known as Four Wheel Drive (FWD), was a pioneering American company that developed and produced all-wheel drive vehicles. It was founded in 1909 in Clintonville, Wisconsin, as the Badger Four-Wheel Dr ...

test tracks.

References

Towns in Victoria (state) Surf Coast Shire {{BarwonSouthWest-geo-stub