Discover

MIRBOO NORTH

GETTING HERE

Perched on a ridge in the middle of the Strzelecki Ranges approximately 150 kilometres east of Melbourne, Mirboo North sits at the top of the rolling green hills of South Gippsland.

The town is easily accessible by car, whether you are driving out of Melbourne (less than 2 hours) or coming from East Gippsland (just over an hour’s drive from Sale or Yarram). Public transport is also an option with a bus service connecting Mirboo North to Morwell and Traralgon in the north and Leongatha and Wonthaggi in the south.

TOWN HISTORY

Mirboo North is Gunaikurnai country on the border of Bunurong country. For tens of thousands of years, the people practised their culture; they hunted, fished, built shelter, understood and celebrated the seasons. They had sophisticated knowledge of the land, enabling them to manage the forests and keep them both passable and sustainable through cultural burning and other methods.  

Mirboo North was first settled by Europeans in the heart of the Strzelecki Ranges at the small settlement of Baromi in 1877.    The name Mirboo North came much later, but it originated from the aboriginal word for kidney.   The original settlement at Baromi included stores for provisions and hotels for refreshments and accommodation, but the buildings themselves were no more than rough huts with slab walls and paling roofs.

With the completion of the railway line from Morwell, the first locomotive steamed into ‘Terminus’ on 1st December 1885.  Terminus was about a kilometre from the settlement at Baromi, and for ease of access a new settlement began in the dense forest nearer to this key facility.  Buildings were erected and the town of Mirboo North began to take shape.