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Shepparton
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Kidstown, Mooroopna
Moooving Art, Shepparton
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Old paddlesteamer wharf on the Goulburn River
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Shepparton Heritage Centre
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The administrative and regional centre of the Goulburn Valley in northern Victoria, Shepparton is the fifth largest city in Victoria. Shepparton and surrounds has an international reputation for fruit and dairy products with some of Victoria's oldest wineries, which is reflected in its restaurants and cafes.
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Where is it?: Victoria: North East. Shepparton is 200 km North-East of Melbourne via Goulburn Valley Highway, which intersects the Midland Highway in the centre of town.
Things to see and do:
SPC Ardmona Kidstown is a childens adventure playground complex at Mooroopna. Designed to entertain, stimulate and inform children, parents will be delighted at the creative, imaginative and, most of all, safe play equipment available to children. The playground has facilities for children of all physical abilities, including wheelchair access for some equipment.
The Shepparton Museum and Historic Precinct features buildings and displays relating to local industry, clothing, transport, communications, shopping and local agriculture of the Shepparton region. Adjacent is the'Historic Precinct by the Goulburn River is an Aboriginal canoe tree (bearing the scars where the bark was removed for the construction of a canoe), the remains of a wharf (1880) from the paddlesteamer days and the site of the punt around which the town grew.
Shepparton’s factory sales outlet for processed fruit has its roots in the 1980s when one ran from a little hut near the Ardmona Factory at Mooroopna, whose main customers were employees and shareholders. The SPC Ardmona factory outlet is now one of Greater Shepparton’s major tourist attractions and has become the largest food factory outlet in Australia. More >>
The Bangerang Cultural Centre features an interesting display relating to Aboriginal culture and history.
Lookouts: Climb the 160 steps to the Shepparton lookout in the city centre. Located on the telecommunications tower, it affords a full view of the city and surrounding region.
Events:
Surrounding area:
Tatura Irrigation and Wartime Camps Museum (20km south west) offers the opportunity to explore the history of Tatura and District including the history of irrigation in the Goulburn Valley and the history of internment and POW camps in WWII.
About Shepparton
Shepparton houses the central administration of the City of Greater Shepparton and is central to the Greater Shepparton urban area, which includes the surrounding suburbs/townships of Tatura, Mooroopna, Murchison, Dookie, Grahamvale and the Goulburn Valley.
The town developed adjacent to the Goulburn River, at a crossing point for miners travelling from the Bendigo goldfields to the new finds in the Beechworth area. As there was no bridge to link rich pastures on either sides of the Goulburn River, a punt was quickly established and the settlement became known as McGuire's Punt.
The name Shepparton comes from a squatter called Sherbourne Sheppard who held the Tallygaroopna Station. From about 1855 it appears in various documents as a dual name "Shepparton or McGuire's Punt". The initial spelling was Sheppardtown or Sheppardton, before coming to its present spelling when the town was surveyed. It's sometimes imagined the name is from Shepparton in England, but that's not the case.
Australia's largest processor of canned fruits, SPC Ardmona, which is partially owned by Coca-Cola Amatil, is situated in Shepparton and its sister-town, Mooroopna. Seasonal fruits, such as peaches, pears and apricots, are preserved into a variety of packaging. A factory sales outlet where damaged goods can be purchased at discounted prices is also located in Mooroopna. Manufacturing industry, such as Furphy Engineering, have evolved to cater for the needs of local primary producers. Shepparton is a major centre for road transport and also has a variety of educational facilities.
The city is also notable for its Moooving Art project, which involves local artists painting fibreglass cows, which are then displayed in tourist locations throughout the city and surrounding townships. The project is an artistic representation of the strong dairy industry prevalent in the Shepparton area. The cows are frequently subjected to vandalism, which a large majority of residents don't care about because they are an eyesore, and a blight on the town.
Kidstown, one of the largest outdoor playgrounds in Australia, is said to have over 200 children visiting each day. Located between Shepparton and Mooroopna, it has two giant slides, a 35 metre flying fox and a train that goes right around the playground. Entry is free (with the exception of the train ride). The playground and the on-site cafe which has a great variety of foods.
The University of Melbourne's School of Rural Health and Rural Clinical School of the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences are also based in Shepparton. La Trobe University also has a campus, offering a small range of subjects. Goulburn Ovens Institute of TAFE has two campuses, one in Fryers Street, and the William Orr Campus in Wanganui Road.
Shepparton railway station is serviced by V/Line services to and from Melbourne, as well as services to Wangaratta, Bendigo and Griffith in New South Wales. Shepparton has three nearby towns, which could be classified as suburbs. They are Mooroopna to the west, and Kialla to the South, and Shepparton East to the east. To the east on the way to the town of Dookie is the housing estate known as Dobson Estate, and is classified as the area Grahamvale.
Mooroopna is the premier residential town to the west of Shepparton, on the opposite bank of the Goulburn River. Mooroopna is connected to the Shepparton by the Peter Ross-Edwards Causeway. V/Line services originating from and returning to Shepparton stop at the Mooroopna railway station.
Shepparton Trivia
The Furphy Water Cart, which gained fame during World war I, had its origins at a foundry in Shepparton. Its inventor was John Furphy, a Shepparton local and experienced wheelwright who employed a similar method of construction to the water tank to create his unique water-carrying vehicle. The presence of the cart in military camps in Australia and overseas during the First World War led to the name of Furphy becoming an indelible part of our language and idiom. It was used extensively in Europe and the Middle East to carry water to the troops and the drivers of the carts were notorious sources of information and gossip for the men as they moved from camp to camp. As could be expected, not all their news was reliable and so it was that the word Furphy rapidly became a synonym for suspect information or rumour.
Television presenter Mike Walsh got his first radio job at 3SR in Shepparton. Musician Sir Bernard Thomas Heinze was born in Shepparton.
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