MERNDA is a tale of two cities, two populations and two dreams. The once quiet rural hamlet with a few
hundred residents is now a thriving outer suburb with thousands of residents and more on the way.
Older residents like Graeme Bushby came for the rural lifestyle.
“I used to love the cow paddocks and wildlife,” he says.
But newcomers like Andrea Johnston moved with husband David and their three children for affordable new housing.
“We moved from Pascoe Vale, where we were living in a renovators delight with only three bedrooms and a tiny lounge and kitchen area,” she said.
Now they live in a modern four-bedroom house with all the luxuries.
The Mernda and District Residents’
Association, formed in October 2004, organised the township’s first community fair at
Buttercross Park last Sunday to help meld the two groups.
Mr Bushby, 64, has lived in the older section of Mernda for more than 20 years.
He recalls a few hundred residents in the 1990s when there was a post office-general store and a milk bar, while nearby Mernda Villages now has its own town centre.
“We’d watch the cows grazing across the road where Mernda Villages estate is now,” he says. “We’d see horses with their foals and beautiful birds. It’s all gone now.”
For Mrs Johnston, moving to Mernda in October 2010 was a dream. “Mernda is like enjoying a little bit of country where one smiles and says hello, although still enjoying close access to the city and all it has to offer,” she says.
