It's ridiculous though, that they consider the whole of the Yarra Ranges a part of the Greater Melbourne region, especially in my part where there is a lot of dense forest and bush land of the Yarra Ranges National Park that joins right up to the Great Alpine National park, it takes about the same amount of time to drive from Ballarat to Melbourne compared to from here to Melbourne, Ballarat is even 2 minutes drive closer to Melbourne

, we are technically a rural area, the biggest town in the Upper Yarra is Warburton, has a population of 2012 people, the population here in my town is 864.
The population of Lilydale is 15,530, that's the biggest town in the whole of the Yarra Ranges, that town is 42 kilometres away, 41 minutes drive. Now I understand if they included Lilydale in the greater Melbourne area, but not towns that are just as far away from Melbourne as Ballarat or Drouin is.......
The question is how big do they really want the Melbourne region to be?
Yarra Ranges used to be 4 separate council areas before 1994
- The Shire of Lillydale
- The Shire of Sherbrooke
- The Shire of Healesville
- The Shire of Upper Yarra
After 1994, they merged all 4 council areas together. This is how we now have the Shire of Yarra Ranges, considered part of Melbourne, even though some of it is actually quite far from Melbourne city.
Anyway that's my rant for today.