Moe, Victoria

Moe
Victoria

Streetscape in central Moe
Moe
Population: 15,582[1]
Postcode: 3825
Location:
LGA: City of Latrobe
County: Buln Buln
State District: Narracan
Federal Division: McMillan

Moe (i/ˈm.i/ moh-ee)[2] is a city[3] in the Latrobe Valley and Gippsland region of Victoria, Australia. It is about 135 kilometres (80 mi) east of Melbourne and at the 2006 census Moe itself had a population of 15,582 (includes Newborough and Yallourn North), with the Latrobe Valley within a 35 to 40 km radius if Moe having a population of approximately 120,000. It is administered by the Latrobe City Council. Moe was originally known as The Mowie, then Little Moi.[4] The town's name is believed to derive from a Kurnai (local Indigenous) word meaning 'swamp land'.

Moe is a navigation point and stopover for tourists en route to Erica, the historic goldfields township of Walhalla, the Walhalla Goldfields Railway and Mount Baw Baw. Moe is also home to the annual Moe Cup horse races, the Moe Jazz Festival in March, a recreated historic settlement Old Gippstown nearby Lake Narracan, locally produced indigenous Aboriginal/Koorie art and is regularly home to local Australian Football finals in the Gippsland League and the Mid Gippsland Football League. The region is represented by Gippsland Power in the TAC Cup competition.

Contents

History

A small gold discovery was made in 1852. The small settlement on the Narracan Creek was a stopover en route to the Walhalla goldfields further north.[5] A Post Office opened on 17 March 1862.[6]

The town was surveyed in 1879, following proclamation of the Shire of Narracan the year before and the arrival of the railway from Morwell. Moe was declared a city in 1963.

Local industry is based around the brown coal deposits in the Latrobe Valley and electricity generation. The area is also noted for its dairy industry.

Moe High School opened in 1952. The school was closed and merged into Lowanna Secondary College, with the previous Moe High School location becoming a housing estate. Jason Bek, a former pupil of Moe High School, is the current principal of Lowanna College.

Population

On the night of the 2006 census there were 15,582 residing in the Moe-Yallourn urban centre; 51.7% female and 48.3% male. At the time Moe had an indigenous (Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander) population of 1.4%, whilst 78.7% of the overall population were born in Australia. The other main countries of origin were: England (4.1%), Netherlands (1.7%), Scotland (1.5%), Malta (1.4%), and Germany (1.2%)[1]

Education

Moe is serviced by a number of primary schools including:

Moe is also serviced by two high schools:

Tertiary education is offered through GippsTAFE (Yallourn, Warragul, Leongatha, Morwell). Monash University also has its Gippsland Campus at nearby Churchill.

Sporting facilities

Moe has a varied and wide range of sporting facilities available for use.

The local leisure centre consists of a 25-metre, 6-lane indoor heated pool, a unisex spa at one end of the complex and separate male & female saunas at the other, gymnasium with both electronic and state-of-the-art pin-loaded equipment (including rowers, treadmills, exercise bikes and steppers), squash court, 400 m all-weather athletics track and grass field with asphalt cycling track around the perimeter and three full-sized basketball courts that are utilised by local basketball, netball, volleyball, badminton, archery and playgroup associations amongst other things. There is also an outdoor pool elsewhere in the town with fifty-metre Olympic pool, diving pool, toddlers pool, learn-to-swim pool and kiosk.

Ted Summerton Reserve in the west end of Vale Street, Moe is used for Australian Football and Cricket and is a short walk (approximately 900 meters) from the Moe V/line train station and CBD. The reserve is undergoing development and has recently had an upgrading of its facilities including an upgrade to the players facilities, preparation of the surrounds of the playing surface for spectator stands to be constructed, spectator terracing, new South Street entrance gate, upgraded scoreboard, and the development of a shared community facility called Moe P.L.A.C.E on the property borderline between the reserve and the adjacent South Street Primary School, far enough back from the eastern wing of the playing surface for a future spectator stand.

The Moe P.L.A.C.E. facility is accessible from both Summerton Reserve and South Street Primary School and was completed in 2011. The facility is part of the Moe Southside Community Precinct and includes a sports hall with side music room and stage at its northern end, community facilities and an Early Learning Centre at its southern end. The development is part of the Moe Southside Precinct development. Moe has an Australian Rules Football team competing in the Gippsland League, the Moe Lions, whose home ground is Summerton Reserve. The reserve is owned by Latrobe City Council and has a permanently eliptical surface.

Olympic Park in Moe is located next to the outdoor pool at the east end of Vale Street and is used for soccer. It is the home ground for Moe United Soccer Club who compete in the Gippsland Soccer League. A new community sports building is under construction at Olympic Park.

Lake Narracan is located immediately to the north of Moe. Lake Narracan is increasingly being used for recreational purposes, including water-skiing, jet skiing and recreational fishing and has a small caravan park and water-ski club.

Golfers play at the course of the Moe Golf Club on Thompsons Road, in Newborough.[7] Yallourn Golf Club is nearby.

Moe has a horse racing club, the Moe Racing Club, which schedules around fifteen race meetings a year including the Moe Cup meeting in October.[8] The racecourse is in Waterloo Road within walking distance of the centre of Moe.

Nearby Mount Baw Baw and Mount St. Gwinear are popular destinations for skiing, with Mount Baw Baw having a small ski resort and Mount St. Gwinear used for cross country skiing.

Transport

V/Line runs passenger rail services to Moe station as part of the Traralgon and Gippsland V/Line rail services which runs to Melbourne's major stations Southern Cross Station and Flinders Street Station. Trains to Melbourne run from the Latrobe Valley/Gippsland to the Melbourne Meteropolitan Pakenham line and follow that line into the Melbourne CBD. Moe is approximately 1 hour and 40 minutes from the CBD of Melbourne By train. The V/Line rail line to the Latrobe Valley (stopping at Moe station and ending at Traralgon) from the easternmost Melbourne meteropolitan train stop of Pakenham has recently been upgraded by the State Government of Victoria for fast rail. The line was upgraded from wooden sleepers to concrete steel-mesh sleepers, with new blue metal for the line, upgrades to siganalling and embanked for future fast rail services. The new trains that run between Melbourne and the Latrobe Valley have a maximum speed of appromately 160 km/h but are not running as fast rail services currently. In the future the express service from Melbounrne to the Latrobe Valley could cut the travel time to Moe from 1 hour and 40 minutes down to around 1 hour and 15 to 1 hour and 20 minutes.

Local bus services, Latrobe Valley Bus Lines in Moe are operated by Valley Transit - which runs busses in the Central to Eastern part of the Latrobe Valley. Latrobe Valley Bus Lines runs connecting buses to nearby towns such as Morwell, Traralgon, Churchill and Yallourn North as well as extensive town services in each major centre that is part of its operating area. There are 5 town services that run from the Moe CBD to town areas and back to the CBD including North Newborough, Old Newborough, Margaret Street, South Street and the Yallourn North service. Inter-center services from Moe through Morwell to Traralgon and back again leave Moe every hour on the hour from 6am to 6pm on weekdays with services also running on Saturdays and Sundays. The Inter-centre services will increase in frequency on the 23rd of January 2012 - with services leaving Moe to Traralgon and Traralgon to Moe every 30 minutes from approximately 6am to 6pm Monday to Friday, approximately 7am to 6pm on Saturday and approximately 8am to 6pm on Sundays. There are also busses run by Warragul Bus Lines that run from the west end of the Latrobe Valley from Warragul (with connecting service to Drouin) to Moe and back again. For more information on bus services in the Latrobe Valley that run to, from and in Moe visit the Regional Bus Timetables page of the Viclink website and select the route you want to see the timetable for from the drop down menu.

Moe is an appromate hour and 20 minutes drive from the center of Melbourne via the Princes Freeway.

Moe is approximately a 20 minute drive from Latrobe Regional Airport.

Media

Moe is serviced by the Latrobe Valley Express newspaper. The Latrobe Valley Express is delivered free to residences in the Latrobe Valley region and has a current circulation of approximately 34,128 (CAB).

Warragul commercial radio stations Star FM and 3GG service this region along with all five ABC radio networks and several community and narrowcast stations.

Commercial Melbourne based television networks such as the Seven, Nine and Ten networks are all re-broadcast in the Latrobe Valley by their regional affiliates, which are Prime7, WIN Television and Southern Cross Ten respectively. All three channels have local commercials placed on their broadcasts and WIN TV also broadcasts a local news bulletin from Monday to Friday at 6.30pm.

New channels broadcast by the commercial networks in addition to the ones listed above are available on the digital service called Freeview (Australia) to viewers in Moe and the Gippsland \ Latrobe Valley region. These channels include One HD, Eleven, 7Two, 7mate, GEM and GO!.

Most Melbourne channels (Seven Network, Channel Nine, Channel Ten) can be received in analogue and more clearly in digital in Moe with a suitable roof-top antenna. Both national public broadcasters, Australian Broadcasting Corporation including channels ABC1, ABC2, ABC3, ABC News 24 and Special Broadcasting Service including SBS One and SBS Two, are broadcast to the Latrobe Valley from the TV tower at Mount Tassie, as well as from the Dandenong Ranges transmitters located east of Melbourne.

Notable people

See also

References

External links