Wandong is a town in
Victoria
Victoria most commonly refers to:
* Queen Victoria (1819–1901), Queen of the United Kingdom and Empress of India
* Victoria (state), a state of Australia
* Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, a provincial capital
* Victoria, Seychelles, the capi ...
, Australia. The town is about north of the state capital,
Melbourne
Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...
, on the
Hume Highway
The Hume Highway, including the sections now known as the Hume Freeway and the Hume Motorway, is one of Australia's major inter-city national highways, running for between Melbourne in the southwest and Sydney in the northeast. Upgrading of t ...
. It adjoins the town of
Heathcote Junction, and at the , the two towns had a population of 1,340.
[ The main centre nearest Wandong is Kilmore.
]
History
The traditional owners
Native title is the set of rights, recognised by Australian law, held by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups or individuals to land that derive from their maintenance of their traditional laws and customs. These Aboriginal title rig ...
of Wandong are the Taungurung
The Taungurung people, also spelled ''Daung Wurrung'', are Aboriginal people who are one of the Kulin nations in present-day Victoria, Australia. They consist of nine clans whose traditional language is the Taungurung language.
Their Country ...
people, a part of the Kulin nation that inhabited a large portion of central Victoria including Port Phillip Bay and its surrounds. Wandong itself is an Aboriginal word meaning "Spirit".
The first Europeans to reach Wandong were Hamilton Hume and Captain William Hilton Hovell who travelled through the centre of the future town of Wandong on the 13th December, 1824.
The explorers proceeded 1260 metres South of Arkell’s Lane, Wandong and crossed the Dividing Range at the low peak there that they named Hume’s Pass. They then moved South along Eastern Ridge, Hidden Valley, and downhill to the Merri Creek, Wallan East near Kelby Lane.
That made Wandong the second township site in Victorian history to be traversed by European explorers. Broadford was the first: Hume and Hovell had passed through it on the same morning.
This exact route has been proven by decoding the map drawn by Hamilton Hume which conforms exactly to the original journal of William Hovell. Hamilton Hume in 1867 corrected his own earlier error that the party crossed the Dividing Range at Big Hill, Bylands.
Wandong was a pastoral region from at least 1843.
By 1876 a small settlement had arisen and a post office gazetted to Mr. F. G. Arkell.
From 1880 Wandong became a major sawmilling and processing town and region.
The town is now a major transport hub with the Hume Highway
The Hume Highway, including the sections now known as the Hume Freeway and the Hume Motorway, is one of Australia's major inter-city national highways, running for between Melbourne in the southwest and Sydney in the northeast. Upgrading of t ...
and the Albury-Wodonga and Shepparton
Shepparton () (Yorta Yorta language, Yortayorta: ''Kanny-goopna'') is a city located on the floodplain of the Goulburn River (Victoria), Goulburn River in northern Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, approximately north-northeast of Mel ...
railway lines passing through it. It has its own railway station
Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...
.
The local school was originally situated to the south of Wandong/Heathcote Junction and was known as Lightwood Flat Common School when it opened in 1871.[ The school was damaged slightly in the ]Black Saturday bushfires
The Black Saturday bushfires were a series of bushfires that either ignited or were already burning across the Australian state of Victoria. Saturday, 7 February 2009 was one of Australia's all-time worst bushfire disasters. The fires occurred ...
.[
The town hosts the Wandong Country Music Festival.
]
Ghost Sightings & Local Folklore
The area has been known for sometime as being a local ghost haunt. Locals & supernatural enthusiasts have often travelled to the region in search of the ghost of Richard Hard who was a prospector during the Victorian Goldrush and local resident and famously disappeared after working the Golden Dyke mine in Clonbinane.
References
External links
Towns in Victoria (state)
Shire of Mitchell
Hume Highway
{{Hume-geo-stub