Deborah PickettSep 28, 2023
Today's #GeoWeirdness subject is the Melbourne suburb of Mount Waverley. Founded on the lands of the Wurundjeri people, Mount Waverley 3149 is Australia's most rectilinear postcode, almost exactly a perfect 2-mile by 3-mile rectangle, thanks to the Mile Grid. (1/12) #PirateGeoWeirdness #MountWaverley
Show threadDeborah PickettSep 28, 2023
The Mile Grid, designed by Robert Hoddle in 1837, is ubiquitous in Melbourne's southeast suburbs. Its tilt of 8° east of north crystallizes the direction of magnetic north around 1900. (2/12) #PirateGeoWeirdness #MountWaverley
Show threadDeborah Pickett
The Mile Grid is different to the well-known Hoddle Grid of the Central Business District, which runs 20° west of north, to align with the Yarra River. (3/12) #PirateGeoWeirdness #MountWaverley
Sep 28, 2023 at 9:11amWeb
Show threadDeborah PickettSep 28, 2023
Both grids are visible in Geoff Boeing's 2018 survey of street directions of world cities. https://geoffboeing.com/2018/07/city-street-orientations-world/ (4/12) #PirateGeoWeirdness #MountWaverley
City Street Orientations around the World – Geoff Boeing

Show threadDeborah PickettSep 28, 2023
Named for the Waverley series of historical novels by Sir Walter Scott, the sprawling area was split into Mount Waverley and adjacent Glen Waverley in 1905. "Mount" Waverley is a gentle hill that not even I work up a sweat climbing. The suburb's highest point is about 140 m above sea level. (5/12) #PirateGeoWeirdness #MountWaverley
Show threadDeborah PickettSep 28, 2023
Mount Waverley's biggest claim to mapping fame is that it was the birthplace of Melbourne's beloved street directory, Melway, whose first edition was released in 1966, and whose 50th edition was released in 2023. Every driver had a Melways in their car. Everyone knew their home's map number and grid reference. (I grew up at Map 123 E11.) (6/12) #PirateGeoWeirdness #MountWaverley
Show threadDeborah PickettSep 28, 2023
Mount Waverley's central street is Stephensons Road, which changes names as soon as you cross the suburb boundaries in either direction, taking on _seven other names_ across its 40 km length. (7/12) #PirateGeoWeirdness #MountWaverley
Show threadDeborah PickettSep 28, 2023
Crossing Stephensons Road is High Street Road. No, I didn't stutter: High Street Road is the road that leads to High Street (in nearby Ashburton). I used to live on High Street Road, whose street numbering duplicated that of High Street, and I got very good at directing lost drivers who found us looking for the sports medicine clinic in Ashburton. Evidently they couldn't read their Melways. (8/12) #PirateGeoWeirdness #MountWaverley
Show threadDeborah PickettSep 28, 2023
In true #GeoWeirdness spirit, Mount Waverley has a Court which is not a Court: Malcolm Court, only one of whose three segments could remotely be considered a true cul-de-sac. (9/12) #PirateGeoWeirdness #MountWaverley
Show threadDeborah PickettSep 28, 2023
Mount Waverley is notable for producing some of Australia's most iconic celebrities: musician Shirley Strachan, TV presenter John Blackman, theatrical actor Marina Prior, Musician Flea, and serial killer Peter Dupas. (10/12) #PirateGeoWeirdness #MountWaverley
Show threadDeborah PickettSep 28, 2023
Mount Waverley is considered so mundane that while it was the logical place for the planned Suburban Rail Loop to cross the Glen Waverley Line, instead the SRL gives Mount Waverley a two-station berth and veers 5 km off-straight to cross at Glen Waverley Station. (11/12) #PirateGeoWeirdness #MountWaverley
Show threadDeborah PickettSep 28, 2023
This concludes today's #PirateGeoWeirdness presentation! Now that you know everything there is to know about the #GeoWeirdness of #MountWaverley, you have no reason to visit! (12/12)
Show threadjojoeffeSep 28, 2023
@futzle thank you! I learned things!
Show threadAndreaSep 28, 2023

@futzle TIL!

Thank you! That was awesome!

Show threadJoanna HolmanMay 7, 2025
@futzle another claim to fame for the Waverleys is that the iconic music video for Bachelor Girl’s Lucky Me was filmed in Glen Waverley Shopping Centre https://youtu.be/o2utxlx3Fcc
#melbourne
Lucky Me

YouTube
Show threadDeborah PickettMay 7, 2025
@joannaholman Wow, just as I remember it circa 2000. Apart from the dome, it’s all been renovated now, completely unrecognizable.
Show threadJulien GoodwinMay 7, 2025
@futzle @joannaholman oh wow, that's a flashback, I am astonished I had not drunk those neurons away
Show threadDrifTedMay 7, 2025
@futzle gold!
Show threadChrisRMay 7, 2025
@futzle Thank you, I enjoyed that thread. Australian postcodes are rather big; from when we lived in Adelaide last century, I vaguely remember a plan for more fine-grained postcodes (eg that might actually help the posties!) by supplementing the 4-digit postcode with a (3-digit?) extension. Did I imagine that? Presumably it either never existed, or died!
Show threadDamien (TIG BUSINESS)Sep 28, 2023
@futzle ALLEGEDLY thats around making Glen Waverley a 'node'. But I'm sure that property values didn't have anything to do with it.
Show threadJulien GoodwinMay 7, 2025
@futzle oh wow, I'd assumed the SRL would essentially parallel Springvale rd
Show threadJoanna HolmanSep 28, 2023
@futzle my favourite cultural export of the area is Bachelor Girl’s iconic Lucky Me music video filmed in local streets and The Glen shopping centre https://youtu.be/o2utxlx3Fcc
Lucky Me

YouTube
Show threadKit BashirSep 28, 2023
@futzle also my son Jack lives there (or maybe nearby I think he drifted slightly). He’s not famous yet.
Show threadajft [SEC=continvoucly morged]Sep 28, 2023

@Unixbigot @futzle also, my parents in law live there, the ride up Forster rd & Mt Pleasant Rd belies the "Mount Waverley" has no mount, and 93.4% (made up number) believe that Mt Waverley's southern border is the freeway and they forget about the bit south from there to Ferntree gully rd.

...and is it Melway or Melways?

Show threaddevopscatsSep 28, 2023
@futzle all I remember is all my friends grandparents lived in Mt Waverley
Show threadDeborah PickettSep 28, 2023

@devopscats Yes, everyone's grandparents live in Mount Waverley. I had to produce grandchildren in order to live here.*

* That's what the authorities think, in any case.

Show threadPaul van den BergenSep 28, 2023
@futzle familiar
Show threadsabikSep 28, 2023
@bulwynkl @futzle
High Street Road is just like Ferntree Gully Road; why are people confused by one but not the other?
Show threadMelissa BearTrix 🏳️‍⚧️Sep 28, 2023

@futzle

Thank you ... that was interesting

Hugz & xXx

Show threadZatty Sep 28, 2023

@futzle Oh hey, that's a danish-scale mountain! Almost as high as Sky Mountain in Denmark.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himmelbjerget

Himmelbjerget - Wikipedia

Show threadDamien (TIG BUSINESS)Sep 28, 2023
@futzle i cannot find the reference, but early on the area was listed as something like the "Eucalypt Ranges"
It was visible from the Melbourne proper as a low range of hills in front of the Dandenong Ranges
Show threadDeborah PickettSep 28, 2023
@aeduna I suppose that makes sense: there’s the floodplain of the Dandenong Creek behind. Wheelers Hill being the most obvious slope in the area but it runs all along the near side of the creek.
Show threadDamien (TIG BUSINESS)Sep 28, 2023
@futzle
even before that - reservoirs at box hill, down to essex heights, and then large reservoir on high st rd, etc depict a ridge of hills that are the final rise heading up along from the Yarra. From a distance you don't notice the deep creeks between them. Then add mountain ash or other tall eucalypt trees....
Show threadJoanna HolmanMay 7, 2025
@futzle I used to find it curious that mount Waverley and glen Waverley are separated by another suburb (Syndal)
Show threadJulien GoodwinMay 7, 2025
@joannaholman @futzle my mum lived in glen Waverley, my dad in Mount Waverley, and I went to Syndal South primary school
Show threadDeborah PickettMay 7, 2025
@LapTop006 @joannaholman Very Goldilocks areas.
Show threadAJ SadauskasMay 7, 2025
@futzle @LapTop006 @joannaholman Meanwhile, Waverley Park and Waverley Gardens — two other Waverley suburbs that AusPost doesn't recognise — are both technically in Mulgrave...
Show threadJulien GoodwinMay 7, 2025
@aj @futzle @joannaholman to be fair, that's a shopping center and a football ground, which did become a subdivision after it was sadly retired from AFL service (I was actually at the final game)
Show threadAJ SadauskasMay 7, 2025
@LapTop006 @futzle @joannaholman Me too 😁

Hawthorn vs the Sydney Swans.

And it was a huge car park that got redeveloped.

Just for comparison, I've attached a map of Waverley Park at the same scale as Clifton Hill, and they're roughly the same area!

Because it's cut off from the rest of Mulgrave by the Monash Fwy and Wellington Rd, it basically functions as its own discrete suburb as well.

And also, despite having Waverley in its name, it's not actually in (Glen or Mount) Waverley. Or even next to them — all of Wheeler's Hill and Brandon Park is in the way.
Show threadJulien GoodwinMay 7, 2025
@aj @futzle @joannaholman mhmm, good match if I recall, not sure if that was the one where Hawthorn came back from being down by some crazy margin at half time to win
Show threadStacey CampbellMay 7, 2025
@aj @LapTop006 @futzle @joannaholman The coldest night of my life was when my country Catholic school came down to Waverley in buses in winter 1979 to watch our football team compete against St Bede's. Windy, cold, wet. We absolutely froze our bums off.
Show threadJulien GoodwinMay 7, 2025
@stacey_campbell @aj @futzle @joannaholman some year in the early 90s my mum got dragged in to being part of the production of the Mordialloc carols by candelight. The weather on the actual day was about as bad as it could possibly be without actually being a deluge of rain, amazingly cold for December, and I also remember the food situation was a mess too which sure didn't help.
Show threadDeborah PickettMay 7, 2025
@joannaholman Syndal is one of those fake places that Aus Post doesn’t recognize. Like Jordanville the other way, it’s only known to the locals.
Show threadJulien GoodwinMay 7, 2025
@futzle ehh, Huntingdale Rd from Jordanville station up towards the school isn't fun, and there's worse nearby
Show threadacbSep 28, 2023
@futzle Surely the Birrarung River, erroneously referred to by the Bunurong word for “flowing water” due to colonial-era carelessness