“Maree … Maree-ba … Maree-ba-nong,” she struggled to pronounce over the phone to me. It’s a conversation I’m familiar with over my years here, so I quickly put her out of her misery: “Marra-ba-nong, you mean?”

“Oh, is that how you say it?” she said, relieved at my less than discreet correction.

Maribyrnong is not as glamorous as its better-known northern neighbour Moonee Ponds. Nor is it as lively as Footscray, now gentrified, to the south. To me, the suburb where I grew up straddles the “best of the west”, with its bird-filled parks and the chaos of its huge shopping centre car parks. But more than anything, it is the river that rules.

The Indigenous people of the Kulin Nations inhabited this valley for more than 40,000 years, and we use an anglicised version of their phrase Mirring-gnay-bir-nong – “I can hear a ringtail possum” – for this bend in the river and the land it encircles about eight kilometres north-west of Melbourne’s CBD. However, the possums seem to occupy more rooftops than gum trees these days.

Frequent mispronunciation is the least of this little suburb’s misfortunes. The popular and ever-expanding Highpoint Shopping Centre has for some time – fairly or not – been nicknamed “Knifepoint” due to its reputation for crime. While it’s not uncommon to see a car or two sporting a giant yellow sheriff’s-wheel clamp, in my experience the former bluestone quarry is more a haven for keen-eyed bargain hunters than armed and angry gangs.

Suburbs........

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