Location
Waurn Ponds is a rural, residential and university suburb, 9km south-west of Geelong.

Description
Although Waurn Ponds is on the outskirts of Geelong, it is only 10 minutes from the city centre and 20 minutes from Anglesea and Bells Beach on the Surfcoast. On the south side of the Princes Highway, there is a growing housing estate, flanked on one side by the Waurn Ponds Creek linear park. The north side of the highway contains some of the state's leading educational institutions - Deakin University, a campus of Geelong Grammar School and the private Marcus Oldham Farm Management College. To the west, small vineyards have been re-established. This spreading suburb is served by a large shopping complex opposite parkland which includes a skateboard park.

History
The town was named after the Waurn chain of ponds, a watercourse that flows from Mt Moriac over 30 km into the Barwon River. The suburb is on the Princes Highway connecting Geelong with western Victoria, and had two early hotels - the Victoria Inn (1845-60) and the Waurn Ponds Inn (1856). The Albert and Victoria vineyards, owned by David Pettavel, began growing grapes in 1848 and the area was better known as Pettavel in the 1860s. A quarry for high-quality building limestone was opened in the 1840s. Kilns for making mortar lime operated until the 1970s. During the 1970s, orchard and farming land was taken for the first of the State Government's regional universities. Deakin University campus at Waurn Ponds was finished in 1977.