Mount Thomas
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Mount Thomas is the fictional setting for the Australian police drama television series Blue Heelers, which ran from 1994 to 2006.
Mount Thomas is located in the state of Victoria in a very rough northern triangle with the real towns of Echuca, Swan Hill and Benalla nearby. Although the population is never stated it is in the region of 4-8,000 people - large enough for a police force of six officers, a court house, a railway station and yards, hospital, primary and secondary schools, the obligatory football and cricket clubs and a swimming pool - but still small enough that most members of the community are known to everyone else.
It is also large enough to have its own town council, a newspaper ("The Gazette") and at least three pubs, one of which is "The Imperial" (the copper's pub) plus "The Railway" and "The Commercial". The nearest radio station, 3SD, operates from the (fictional) larger town of St. David's where the local regional television station is also located.
Mount Thomas is close to a national park and is largely surrounded by open farmland. There is a river nearby, and also a lake, Lake Widgeree. The town comes within the police district of St. David's, and the Mount Thomas police also patrol the (also fictional) smaller settlement of Widgeree. The police ultimately report to the (real) state capital of Melbourne.
Mount Thomas is sometimes jokingly referred to as the 'Crime Capital of Australia' due to the constant stream of murders, thefts, kidnappings, explosions, shootings and assults which happened on Blue Heelers on a weekly basis.
[edit] Real locations used
The majority of exterior scenes were filmed in Wyndham, Williamstown and from time-to-time at Castlemaine, all in the state of Victoria. Castlemaine, in the Victorian goldfields region 90 minutes north of Melbourne, played Mount Thomas in the major aerial shots of the town.
To contain production costs location scenes needed to be shot close to the South Melbourne studios of Channel Seven, so coastal Williamstown (20 mins southwest of the city) - noted for its Victorian and Federation architecture - was chosen. The railway yards of adjacent Newport were the location for the Mount Thomas rail yards, and the scene of numerous crimes. The nearby basalt plains around Werribee were suitable to represent farming and bush country.
The shots looking north were filmed from the Burke & Wills monument towards the former Castlemaine Gaol (now closed). The southern shots were filmed at the Castlemaine Gaol looking over the Castlemaine Railway Station (Melbourne-Bendigo line) towards the Post Office clocktower.
Coincidentally the exterior of "The Imperial Hotel" is a former local pub called "The Imperial Hotel" (which was marked up with beer signage for cut away scenes). Today it is a decaying secondhand clothes and antiques store - and the interior has no resemblance to Chris Riley's pub! Even more strangely, "The Imperial" is right next door to the real Castlemaine Police Station (although this has never been featured in the show).
The first Mount Thomas Police Station was actually the former Williamstown Police Station where the majority of the Mount Thomas street scenes were filmed. Early in the series the building was sold and converted to a residence and was specially decorated for filming.
