The confusion starts

In June 2021 a BP service station on the Western Freeway was reported as an exposure site.

New exposure site
BP Service Station- Westbound (outbound)
Address: 1789 Western Freeway, Truganina, VIC
Date: 13/07/2021
Time: 7:15am – 7:50am

Tier 1 – Get tested immediately and quarantine for 14 days from exposure #COVID19VIC

— VicExposureSiteBot (@ExposureSiteBot) July 17, 2021

But when you put the address into Google Maps, it shows that the service station is nowhere near Truganina – it’s north of the next suburb over, Ravenhall.

aha! so it's google maps that's wrong. pic.twitter.com/f6TRPurzJc

— ken tsang (@jxeeno) July 16, 2021

Yet Google Maps also lists the service station’s address as being in Truganina.

Google maps has it as truganina…? pic.twitter.com/3fd1U8N0JS

— Patrick Malone (@pattymalone2000) July 16, 2021

So what gives?

So where is Truganina?

To get a definitive answer on the suburb’s boundaries, I turned to the Victorian Register of Geographic Names. Turns out Truganina is a massive suburb, covering 56 square kilometres.

Stretching 15 kilometres from the Western Freeway, Rockbank station and the Ballarat railway line in the north.

Down to Hoppers Crossing and Williams Landing in the south – almost reaching the Princes Freeway and Werribee railway line.

So time to explore!

The southern end of Truganina is cookie cutter housing estates just like any other growth area of Melbourne.

The selling point being the (relatively!) low prices for land.

And V/Line trains to Southern Cross Station, which use the Regional Rail Link route opened in 2015.

Westbourne Grammar School also has a campus here, opened back in 1977 when the area was just paddocks.

But residential development continues creeping north over what was once grazing land.

Then we meet fields of tilt slab concrete warehouses, home to over 1,500 registered business, both large and small.

Then we reach the centre of ‘old’ Truganina – the local cemetery.

Located next door to a pony club.

Unlike Tarneit the only high ground is a handful of road-over-rail bridges, which provide a view of the Melbourne CBD, located 20 kilometres away to the east.

But it is massive warehouses that dominate the skyline of Truganina.

Towering over the railway lines.

The biggest being a pair of 43 metre tall automated cold storage facilities, capable of holding 225,000 pallets of frozen goods.

But hidden between them is something much smaller – the Truganina Munitions Reserve, established during the Second World War to store explosives in what was then an isolated area, but now abandoned and vandalised.

We now head out into the countryside.

A few farm houses still remain.

The roads now full of traffic, used by motorists taking a shortcut from the Western Freeway.

We skirt the massive rubbish tip located at Boral’s quarry in Ravenhall.

And find high voltage power lines bound for Geelong.

And some even bigger power lines bound for the Portland aluminium smelter.

Until we eventually reach the Ballarat railway line.

Here we find Truganina’s second front of urban development.

Moving south-east from Rockbank station.

With new houses taking shape.

On roads stained by red dirt.

Filling the paddocks between Mount Atkinson and Mount Cottrell.

Fifteen kilometres from where we started – no wonder nobody knows where Truganina is!

Footnote – border changes

Truganina falls between the City of Wyndham and City of Melton, but the name has a long history – the local post office opened on 12 June 1878, closed in 1895, reopened in 1902 and closed again in 1942.

In 1992 southern boundaries were formalised by the then-City of Werribee, with public consultation showing concern that the historic value of the Truganina, Tarneit and Mount Cottrell names may be lost if they were absorbed into neighbouring localities.

Victorian Government Gazette 1 July 1992

The boundaries for the southern half of Truganina again gazetted in 1998, and are still in place today.

City of Wyndham locality names and boundaries – Version 5.7 August 2021

However the northern boundaries in the City of Melton have seen some change, since Ravenhall and Truganina gazetted as suburbs in 2006.

Shire of Melton locality names and boundaries – Version 4.4a August 2006

The boundary being moved north in 2017, when the City of Melton created eleven new suburbs to cater for urban growth in formerly rural areas.

City of Melton locality names and boundaries – Version 4.6 February 2017

The changes were minor – but made Truganina even bigger!

The northern boundary will extend along the Western Freeway eastbound from Clarke Road to Troups Road North. The western boundary will align with Troups Road North southbound from the Western Freeway to Greigs Road. The boundary continues westbound along Greigs Road to Troups Road South, extending southbound along Troups Road South to Boundary Road.

The southern and eastern boundaries remain unchanged.

The area now being developed was added to Melbourne’s Urban Growth Boundary in 2010 following the passing of Amendment VC68.

Delivering Melbourne’s newest sustainable communities

So the failure to split out the northern half of Truganina in 2017 as a new suburb seems quite odd – it’s not like the new housing estates were a sudden change.

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Birth

A decade ago I was in the empty streets of an industrial estate south of Caroline Springs, where a new Bunnings Warehouse store was taking shape.

The iconic grand entrance was there.

But inside there wasn’t a floor.

Just rebar waiting a concrete pour.

By 2014 the streets of the industrial estate were starting to fill up.

Google Street View

And by 2020 Bunnings had disappeared behind a sea of tilt-slab concrete.

Google Street View

Death

While on Millers Road in Altona North was an unlucky Bunnings Warehouse store.

Locked up and ready to be demolished.

Replaced by a brand new $47 million, 17,000-square metre store next door.

And rebirth

Out on High Street in Epping I found a familiar green shed, but it was no longer a Bunnings Warehouse – but a furniture store.

Bunnings moved to a new site on Cooper Street in late 2015.

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