This is the first episode of “This Must Be the Place”, a podcast-in-the-offing hosted by David Nichols (University of Melbourne) and Elizabeth Taylor (RMIT University). It’s a podcast about space, place, culture and society. It’s kind of like the Urbanists (our community radio show on RRR, about urban planning type issues in Melbourne) except now it’s a podcast.

This first episode is a doco-style one about the remains of Cocoroc, inside the Western Treatment Plant.

If you live in Melbourne, chances are you don’t give too much thought to where what you flush down the toilet goes to. The important part is it just goes ‘away’. But the chances are – as with 80% of Melbourne’s sewage - it travels to the Western Treatment Plant in Werribee.

For much of its history, from the 1890s, the Plant was known as the ‘Metropolitan Farm’. It was the most productive farm in Victoria. And the farm was, for nearly a century, a home to many people. As recently as the late 1970s, hundreds of workers and their families lived inside the sewage farm, including in a township called Cocoroc.

In this episode we take a tour with Melbourne Water Heritage Manager Paul Balescone to see what remains of Cocoroc today. We also speak to a PhD student, Monika Schott, who's researching what life was like living on the Farm. And we introduce the idea of the This Must Be The Place podcast.

Alternative title: “dropping the kids off at the pool”. (The town’s old swimming pool is featured. Also that’s a terrible joke).

Corrections from the audio: The town of Cocoroc was occupied until the 1970s, not the 1980s. And although there were many place-names within the Farm some say there was only really one town, Cocoroc.

This episode was: Written and produced by Elizabeth Taylor

With: Paul Balescone - Melbourne Water Heritage Manager, Monika Schott – PhD Candidate, Deakin University, David Nichols – The University of Melbourne. Marcus Lancaster – The University of Melbourne (he was there, but he doesn’t talk).

Music by: Andrew Bonnici