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Information about Puckapunyal

Puckapunyal, referred to by locals as 'Pucka', is a small town mainly populated by the Defence Force community.

Puckapunyal, and the larger neighbouring town of Seymour, are part of the Mitchell Shire, which calls itself "the heart of Victoria". The region encompasses Melbourne's northern most area and north-central Victoria's farming area.

Puckapunyal is 100km from Melbourne and one hour drive from the historic gold rush town of Bendigo. With a population of 100,000, Bendigo also has major department stores and retail shopping centres.

While Puckapunyal is small, the base provides locals with a diverse range of activities, ranging from rock-climbing to squash and swimming. There is a skate park and an environmental walking track and movie nights are held weekly in the theatre. There are approximately 280 families on the Puckapunyal base and large numbers of students rotate through the facility a year for training purposes. The community is supportive and tight-knit.

There is a bus, which runs between Puckapunyal and Seymour. Nearly all places within Puckapunyal are easy to access on foot or by a bicycle and it is only a ten minute drive to Seymour.

DHA manages just over 370 properties in the Puckapunyal region. The vast majority of these are in Puckapunyal and the nearby town of Seymour. DHA has a mix of on-base and off-base housing. Older dwellings are being replaced with newer, more modern accommodation and all properties are within walking distance to shops.

Due to the amount of space available, most houses are one story freestanding brick dwellings with backyards and have either carports or garages. There are also a small number of townhouses on-base.

As the region experiences all four seasons and is particularly cold in winter, heating is provided in all DHA-managed houses.

Houses tend to have natural gas heating and a mix of wall furnaces and ducted heating. The majority of houses have ducted evaporative cooling. The rest of the older properties have ceiling fans.