Hamilton

Hamilton, 275 km west of Melbourne, is the administrative centre for the Shire of Southern Grampians in western Victoria. Surrounded by grazing pastures producing the finest of merino wools, and self styled ‘Wool capital of the world’ the town is at the junction of the Henty and Glenelg Highways, and on the railway line to Portland. It is situated in a loop of a creek known as the Grange Burn, a place first visited by Europeans when Major Thomas Mitchell’s exploring party transited the future town site – along Collins or Lonsdale Streets – on 12 September 1836.