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Nar Nar Goon

(3812, 60 km SE, Cardinia Shire)

The name of this rural district comes from an Aboriginal word for koala. As with most of the area on the northern edge of the Koo-wee-rup Swamp, farming and saw-milling were the main 19th-century activities, both stimulated with the coming of the Gippsland railway in the late 1870s. Nar Nar Goon township grew around the station, and rural residential settlement has also developed in the north near Maryknoll. Agricultural activity in the area declined in the latter decades of the 20th century, although dairying remains an important local industry.

Jenny Keating