Former RANAD (Royal Australian Navy Armaments Depot) Somerton - 12th March 2006

This depot was built during WWII, around 1941, in the relatively isolated (at the time) rural area of Somerton, Victoria. It grew in size over the years with additional land being acquired into the 1950s, then shrunk as the Greenvale Reservoir was built in the late 1960s, reusing some of the RANAD land. The base was closed around the year 2000 and was acquired by a land developer. Part of it will be consolidated into the reservoir's expanding borders, but most will be demolished and redeveloped as residential housing. As for Somerton, a sizeable chunk of the land adjacent to the base was used to form the new housing development of Roxburgh Park from the late 1980s onwards, and due to movement of borders (presumably to avoid Somerton being split into two islands) the base's official location changed to the adjacent suburb of Greenvale; the remainder of Somerton is now a 100% commercial/industrial suburb.

This is the first of many visits to this site. It was a stifling 36 degrees C (97F) that day, which made for a very hot photographer, but also a beautiful sky.