Healesville, Victoria
|
|
Healesville is an outer-eastern suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 52km from the Melbourne centre and situated on the Watts river, a tributary of the Yarra River. It is in the local government area of the Shire of Yarra Ranges.
The creation of a railway to the more distant Gippsland and Yarra Valley goldfields in the 1860s resulted in a settlement forming on the Watts river and its survey as a town in 1864. It was named after Richard Heales, the Premier of Victoria from 1860-1861.
Healesville is well known for the Healesville Sanctuary a nature park with hundreds of native Australian animals displayed in a semi-open natural setting and an active platypus breeding program.
Schools in Healesville include the 125 year-old Healesville Primary School, a Catholic primary school, the Healesville High School, and Worawa College, an Aboriginal school where many famous footballers have been educated. Much of what is now Healesville lies on the ancestral land of the Wurundjeri people, and aboriginal missions have been there in the past.
Swinburne TAFE has a campus in Healesville.